December, the Advent Month

2025-12-01

I’ve been living under a rock. Apparently, December is the ‘Advent’ month. There are 2 advents in particular that caught my eye:

Advent of code: an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles that can be solved in any programming language. Created by Eric Wastl, it has been running since 2015. Completely free to participate. No CS background needed, just a little programming knowledge and logical skills. The puzzles can be solved on any old hardware in under 15 seconds. It used to run for the full 25 days, but since this year it has been reduced to 12 days. Each day, there are two puzzles to solve. The last one, which is harder, is unlocked after solving the first.
Advent of cyber: Also free to participate. Each day offers a new challenge to solve. It’s also beginner friendly, so no prior knowledge is needed. There are instructional videos presented by popular cybersecurity content creators to help you get up to speed. It lasts for 25 days.

What a fun month !D