So, Jeremiah Peschka's post on practicing has hooked me into working through this series of word problems. You can use any language to solve the problems. I'll be using PowerShell because I need the exercise and I need to learn how to use Github . You can try the Advent of Code yourself here and see my answers so far here . I was able to answer the first puzzle with four lines of PowerShell. Yeah! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!