Published on 12/14/2015

It’s been a while since I just coded something for the fun of it. And it is the first time I’m taking someone else’s challenge.

A colleague recently linked to adventofcode.com, created by Eric Wastl. I don’t know how recent it is; I’m probably way behind the rest of the population on this one, but it took my fancy. The challenges are interesting, well structured and in some cases pretty hard. You can find my solutions on github.

I’ve learnt a few things about C# during the bits that I have completed, like dealing with unsigned integers for a start, the sort of thing that never really crops up in business orientated software. It’s also an ideal opportunity to practice TTD and red/green/refactor outside of a pressure environment.

Similarly, I’ve also started building my own implementation of Kevin Perlin’s noise algorithm. The link to his original source code from 1983 is here, but I haven’t read or used C or C++ since 1999. None the less, so far I’ve completed the method for 1 dimension. It’s a great challenge to take on and make your own. Also soon on my github.