[xyzelement]

I recently went through the 2021 puzzles and I don't recall having this experience.

I also think the choice of language matters a lot. I did it in prolog a few years ago and it was super concise because you just dealt with pure logic at that point.

I can see it be more verbose in Java :) but seriously I find these puzzles hard but not in a chore kind of way.

[bmitc]

Are your Prolog solutions public? I would love to take a look!

[widforss]

I have only solved one puzzle in Prolog, but here it is: https://github.com/widforss/adventofcode/blob/master/example...

I choosed Prolog for that one as that meant I didn't have to implement the search algo, just state the problem in logic.

[xyzelement]

I'd love to but alas I don't have it public. Googling, I found a few other folks like this one:

https://github.com/Limmen/Advent-Of-Code16-Prolog

Don't know if this is "beautiful" prolog but the programs seem pretty short compared to what a typical AoC question is.