Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, December 1st, 2025 (#902)

djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• snooting@wetshav.ing ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Do you participate in AoC every year?

  I’ve started a couple years but always struggle to finish.

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  • djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Unfortunately not. I used to a few years ago, but last year I didn’t participate, and the year before I didn’t finish.

    New year, new chance!

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• gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  AoC is something that I like the idea of, especially to see other people’s solutions. I’m always impressed at how clever people can be. Especially with coding. I entered the IOCCC in the 80’s. It was fun to participate but more fun to see other people’s creations.

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  • djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I have a love/hate relationship with clever code. It’s fun in contests and quizzes, but in production, it’s maintenance poison. Dumb is boring, boring is good.

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    • gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yes, I understand completely. For me, having responsibility for a large body of embedded systems software and computer electronics on a spacecraft, “clever” meant finding simple, elegant, easily understood, solutions to complex problems. The value of this is realized when an anomaly that results from an “unknown unknown” must be quickly understood and resolved. I also love the hackery involved with something like IOCCC, but that’s more of a game than anything else.

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