929 B
Day 3: Lobby
I had an idea for a solution to the first puzzle pretty quickly, and implemented it straightaway.
But it was also brute force - literally stepping through each possible combination until I knew which one was best. This worked fine when only finding for a match, but the twist of the second puzzle made it... impractical (and don't think I didn't try).
ATM (11:30p Wed), I've got an algorithm that tries to create the highest value number by pulling out numbers in reverse numerical order, but it isn't quite working. My current hope is to come at it fresh tomorrow when I also tackle puzzle 4.
UPDATE: Two days later, and I finally figured out the algorithm I needed to get the value. I thought I had it with an overcomplicated function that tried to count down from right to left, but in the end, the solution wound up being much simpler.
JS Solutions
cd js
node day03a.js
node day03b.js