It's mostly a challenge I set for myself to see how far I could get using SQL! I've done the past couple years in Python and just wanted to change it up.
So far parsing the inputs has not been nearly as much of a hassle as I thought. I really like how DuckDB supports directly selecting from files (e.g. `select * from 'file.csv'`). I thought I was going to be spending more time creating schemas, running `copy`, etc.
Overall pretty nice quality of life experience so far, even if it is only to mess around with a few puzzles.
Things are a bit sketchy at the moment. Had a recent get-together including a former co-worker who was an obvious hire-this-person. They got hit in a layoff and they're still essentially out of work after a year.
Job postings that don't respond to inquiries about the role are a waste of your time, and it's possible to spend all day every day applying to them. Job postings without a method of contact are probably some kind of scam.
The easiest step, IMHO, is to start by ignoring employers who use a service to filter applicants.
For those interested in escaping the Hacker Prison where ‘Weeks of coding can save hours of thinking’ I strongly recommend William Kent’s book “Data and Reality’.
I can’t think of any of the advent of code questions this year where a database would have been of any use.
Do tell us more.