It’s not a secret to anyone who knows me that I absolutely love December. It’s not because of the season or Christmas or anything else that most people would point to. It’s because December means Advent season and Advent season to me means programming challenges, pen-testing basics reviewing, and web tips and tricks.

A semi-recent trend in tech circles is to make an event out of the month of December. Now that we are nearly half way to Christmas (as of the time I’m writing this), it seems like a good opportunity to reflect on my thoughts about the Advents that I’m participating in this year and potentially share them with anyone reading this who hasn’t heard of them before.

HTMHell

HTMHell does 24 days of HTML/CSS/Javascript tips, tricks, and articles. A few tend not to strike me as that notable and the value in them varies, but it’s nice to have a potential little chunk of learning each day.

So far this year, a couple of have stood out to me over the others:

Day 3

Day 3’s article, titled Back to Basics: 5 HTML attributes for improved accessibility and user experience, by Daniela Kubesch was mostly new or forgotten information for me. Given my current residence as a foreigner living in Germany, I have a renewed interest in language and accessibility standards around it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put some of that information to good use on this site soon.

Day 5

Day 5, The Hellish History of HTML: An incomplete and personal account, by Jason Cranford Teague was a nice little history of the web. Nothing super new, but a bit different than the standard content I expected. My only complaint is that I don’t see how someone can mention the blink tag and leave out the marquee tag.

12 Days of Web

12 Days of Web is very similar in concept to HTMHell’s Advent calendar. The biggest difference is that it doesn’t start until December 13th. Until then, there isn’t much to say about it. The last two years are available on the website though, which can be consumed any time.

Advent of CSS/Javascript

Advent of CSS and Advent of Javascript are technically 2 different Advents, but they are both created by the same person (Amy Dutton) and designed in such a way that they work through different ends of the same projects. The last 2 years were the same offering with matching mini projects each day, allowing you to work directly from one to the other if you wished, but this year is a bit different. This year the whole month is one big project. I’m interested to see where the final result will go.

Try Hack Me: Advent of Cyber

Try Hack Me provides Advent of Cyber. It’s very entry level and designed to provide a nice overview of a number of different aspects of pen testing and cyber security. The story providing the framework can be a little disjointed, but it’s a nice little introduction and one I would highly recommend anyone interested in getting their feet wet with “hacking.”

Advent of Code

My personal favorite and the thing I think of when I think of December is Advent of Code. Created by Eric Wastl, Advent of Code features a daily, 2 part puzzle. For the first part, you are given some kind of text input and asked to parse, manipulate, and calculate a single integer response from that data. Doing so will unlock part 2, in which you will use that same input differently somehow. The second part can range from incredibly easy to requiring you to start from the beginning depending on how you implemented the first part and if you could predict the twist. All of this is wrapped in an adorable story about how you have to save Christmas by collecting stars from incompetent and hilarious elves.It truly is my favorite part of the season.

Advent of Code is one of my favorite ways to practice languages I don’t get to write in often. I asked my girlfriend what I should do for this year and she chose Rust for me, so it’s been pretty smooth sailing so far on that front.

This year has stood out for its difficulty compared to previous ones. Day 5 in particular had me wasting a lot of time (sorting the maps from the beginning would have made a huge difference).


Day 5 Advent of Code Meme

A meme about Advent of Code Day 5’s difficulty from Reddit user u/TOMIE

Time Commitment

I don’t put too much pressure on myself to finish any of these by the end of the month. In fact, if I don’t finish until months later, it’s fine with me. This is fun for me and should remain fun. That’s not to say that it isn’t exhausting because it certainly can be, especially around an already hectic holiday season schedule. I just love doing it and I love sharing that with people.