Solving Advent of Code Puzzles With Python

The Real Python Podcast

Are you ready to break open the first days of puzzles from the annual Advent of Code challenge? Advent of Code is an advent calendar of twenty-five programming puzzles published each December. Practicing solving puzzles is a great way to build your Python skills. This week on the show, we have previous guest and Real Python author Geir Arne Hjelle to discuss his recent article titled, “Advent of Code: Solving Your Puzzles With Python.”

We discuss the history of this online Advent calendar and the creator Eric Wastl. Geir Arne covers techniques to help you organize your code and test when solving the puzzles. He shares additional Python tools for parsing text, managing puzzle data, and visualizing your program output. We also talk about even more places you can practice solving programming puzzles.

Course Spotlight: Regular Expressions and Building Regexes in Python

In this course, you’ll learn how to perform more complex string pattern matching using regular expressions, or regexes, in Python. You’ll also explore more advanced regex tools and techniques that are available in Python.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:02:03 – Geir Arne’s new full-time role at Real Python
• 00:02:55 – Advent of Code: Solving Your Puzzles With Python
• 00:09:25 – Using different languages to solve the puzzles
• 00:12:21 – Different ways to approach the problems
• 00:16:31 – Sponsor: CData Software
• 00:17:12 – Organizing your code into reusable functions
• 00:19:38 – Unique user source data and managing puzzle data
• 00:24:40 – Additional Python tools that might be useful
• 00:31:13 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:32:42 – Ways to enhance code output and visualization
• 00:34:50 – Leaderboards
• 00:37:52 – Real Python office hours discussion of Advent of Code
• 00:39:30 – Additional resources to practice solving puzzles with Python
• 00:50:15 – Supporting Advent of Code
• 00:50:40 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 00:51:59 – What do you want to learn next?
• 00:55:52 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• About Geir Arne Hjelle – Real Python
• Advent of Code: Solving Your Puzzles With Python – Real Python
• Advent of Code: Solving Puzzles With Python - Real Python
• Advent of Code 2021
• Python Community Interview With Eric Wastl – Real Python
• Eric Wastl - Advent of Code: Behind The Scenes - Leetspeak 2019 - YouTube
• r/adventofcode: Visualizations - reddit.com
• About - Project Euler
• Exercism: 55 languages for you to master
• Codewars - Achieve mastery through coding practice and developer mentorship
• HackerRank
• TwilioQuest - Discover your power to change the world with code.
• Data Puzzles: Sharpen your Data Science skills
• makersacademy/clmystery: Command Line Murder Mystery
• Learn VIM while playing a game - VIM Adventures
• Support AoC - Advent of Code 2021
• The Elixir programming language
• Live stream with José Valim, creator of Elixir, solving AoC - josevalim - Twitch
• Numerical Elixir (Nx)

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

• Regular Expressions and Building Regexes in Python
• Test-Driven Development With pytest
• Strings and Character Data in Python

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