Altvent of Code

I’ve been a long time half-asser of Advent Of Code, a long-running series of festive programming challenges. I’m a fan! Self-contained, digestible puzzles that (somewhat) ramp up in difficulty are a great way to learn a new programming language. Or improve at a more… algorithmic(?) type of programming that you might have not had much exposure to, especially if (like me) your introduction into the deep blue sea of writing software was with something comparitively high-level, like web development.

However, in recent years I’ve found myself get a bit tired of the cycle:

• Observe problem: fun 👍
• Understand problem: fun 👍
• Start translating problem into Rust code (sometimes this is mixed with the last step to be honest): fun 👍
• Iterate on solution to make something satisfying and neat: fun 👍
• See tests pass: fun 👍
• Start again from scratch the next day: less fun 👀
• Be left with something of no real-world utility: decreasingly fun the more you do it ⚠️

So, last year I decided to try something different - a from-scratch MP3 decoder! In Rust! I didn’t get very far, but it had all the elements of what I enjoyed about AoC, but unlike AoC I’m motivated to pick up where I left off and keep going this year. So:

Join me this December and write something for fun, profit, and perhaps a secret third thing!

• You might want to use a new or novel language or tool, or not
• You might want it to be something useful that could perhaps be open sourced, or not!
• You might want to start from scratch but perhaps you have something half-done already you’d want to go back to
• You don’t have to do it every day!
• You don’t have to finish it!
• You are encouraged to write a bit about it, perhaps a blog post or fedi/bsky/whatever thread.

We’ll gather in Discord¹ and ask, show, and tell. You’re invited! Click here to join the discord guild.