Picat Through the Lens of Advent of Code

TL;DR

This paper showcases how Picat's multi-paradigm features, especially constraint solving and tabling, enable concise and efficient solutions to diverse problems from the 2024 Advent of Code, highlighting its suitability for complex problem-solving.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of Picat's features in solving AoC problems, emphasizing its advantages over traditional imperative approaches.

Findings

Picat enables concise problem implementations.

Constraint solving and tabling improve efficiency.

Picat outperforms imperative languages in problem-solving.

Abstract

Picat is a logic-based, multi-paradigm programming language that integrates features from logic, functional, constraint, and imperative programming paradigms. This paper presents solutions to several problems from the 2024 Advent of Code (AoC). While AoC problems are not designed for any specific programming language, certain problem types, such as reverse engineering and path-finding, are particularly well-suited to Picat due to its built-in constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and dynamic programming with tabling. This paper demonstrates that Picat's features, especially its SAT-based constraint solving and tabling, enable concise, declarative, and highly efficient implementations of problems that would require significantly more effort in imperative languages.