'Advent of Code' Has Begun - and Other Geeky Daily Programming Challenges

I Programmer writes:
December 1st is much anticipated among those who like programming puzzles. It is time to start collecting stars by solving small puzzles on the Advent of Code website with the goal of amassing 50 stars by Christmas Day, December 25th. Raku has also opened its advent calendar and there's a brand new Bekk Christmas blog with informational content on multiple topics... At the time of writing we are only 10.5 hours into Advent of Code's Day 1, almost 50,000 users have completed both puzzles and another 8,484 have completed the first. [Some programmers are even livestreaming their progress on Twitch, or sharing their thoughts (and some particuarly creative solutions) in the Advent of Code subreddit.]

We can credit Perl with pioneering the idea of a programming advent calendar with daily articles with a festive theme and the Raku Advent Calendar now continues the tradition. Now in its 13th year, but only the third with its new name this year's first advent post solves a problem faced by Santa of creating thumbnails of approaching 2 billion images...

Smashing magazine has pulled together its own exhaustive list of additional geek-themed advent calendars. Some of the other highlights:

The beloved site '24 Pull Requests' has relaunched for 2021, daring participants to make 24 pull requests before December 24th. (The site's tagline is 'giving back to open source for the holidays.') Over the years 26,465 contributors (as well as 25,738 organizations) have already participated through the site.
The Advent of JavaScript and Advent of CSS sites promise 24 puzzles delivered by email (though you'll have to pay if you also want them to email you the solutions!)

This year also saw daily challenges from the sixth annual Code Security advent calendar being announced on Twitter, while TryHackMe.com has its own set of cybersecurity puzzles (and even a few prizes).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.