advent of code: days 2 and 3
thanks to @xiacodes for the encouragement to join advent of code 2023. i saw her post on 2nd Dec and started doing it on 8th. by that time i was already behind by 8 days. nevertheless, i finished day 1 and 2. and today, i spent the whole day doing days 2 and 3. don't know why it took me so long. i guess i lost track of time (i was trying to configure my Makefile from scratch; that's always a pain). i spent about ~10 hours on this. i challenged myself to write the codes in C because i'd like to strengthen my grasp on the language.
the problems are mainly about parsing the strings to get useful information. i haven't yet come across algorithmically tough problems (probably because i'm still stuck on day 4). i did spend a lot of time on day 4 part 1 problem. i am pretty sure my program is correct, i sorta double-checked (except i don't know exactly what i should be checking for) - yet the answer is not matching. i didn't get any hints from the subreddit as well because it was just people sharing their solutions, which - i mean - i could go through them (i'm too tired at this point) - but the general approach (from the post introduction) was what i did myself.
it's even more frustrating because it has put a damper on my sense of accomplishment. i don't want to walk away from this with a failure on my mind. the problem is so easy. it's pissing me off that i don't know what i'm doing wrong.
now i feel like i've spent my whole day on something useless. and i'm in the middle of my uni exams, so i did this instead of studying. i could cry.
anyone has any tips on how to keep track of time when you're solving problems like these? also, share your progress, i'd love to hear what you've been up to! (or you can write about your lack of progress and we can cry about it together T_T)
