🎄⌨️ Advent of Code 2018

Tech-note 457825

Today’s problem didn’t seem complex and I avoided some of the obvious gotchas that seemed to be tripping up other people (and for the record I don’t visit the solutions megathread until after I have my own in hand). But for some reason it felt like the solution came very slowly.

Anyhow, I got it: day04.rkt

I’m good enough at Racket where I can tease apart the problem into lots of small functions. But I’m still not good enough to grasp the efficient, readable, elegant, concise solution that a functional programming style seems able to provide for other people. So it feels like I have code diarrhea: I just keep typing until I have enough functions and indenting and parentheses to get the right answer.

But I’m not going to beat myself up over it. My only rule this year is, just get the answer. Don’t spend time reworking it. If 2019 rolls around and I still feel like doing refinements, I’ll do them then.