What I learned
Last year I was too ambitious, naive, or both. I set myself overly challenging daily goals, forgetting once again that what truly matters is only the learning progress. The problem with not having attainable goals is that one quickly loses momentum; this builds up over time, day after day, and at some point one finds that it has all become too difficult or tiring. You lose all interest, you start telling yourself, "well, I can catch up later anyway," but the truth is that you are already filing away the project.
I can say that I have learned several things, then. This year, I will set only two goals, plus one extra that will be more of a gauge for evaluating how it is going:
Write a short post for each puzzle. It doesn't matter whether I don't have the best or complete solution, or if I got it all wrong. If I don't know what to write, I'll do a summary in 240 characters, as if I have to condense everything into a tweet.
Do not seek prose perfection of what I write during the challenge because there will be no time. Much of what I will have will go away to get to the solution of both parts (hopefully) of the puzzle. The important thing is to keep track of the essential elements that will then, in the future, allow me to expand and consolidate these posts. In these twenty-five days, I'll sow the seeds, tomorrow we will reap.
Am I having fun? Which single thing did I enjoy the most learning today?
In addition, there is a great advantage to this Advent of Code 2022: there is a small group that has gathered on Telegram - passionate and also professional people from the Python Italia community - that will give a good push in terms of accountability.
I know there will be someone to always discuss the puzzles with, and I'm already sure I'll learn something from those who know more than me. It's a great incentive to keep the rudder in the right direction.
Okay, let's get going! 🎄🧑💻🎄