What we're operating on in AOC are NOT "Strings" in the modern way. They're just base 128 data mapped to the roman alphabet for readability. (not even the 255 of extended ASCII)
A previous year I started writing a whole [UInt8] based type. It was fun! This year so far I'm just using that extension that would be a no-go for production and moving on... because something else is fun this year.
Next year I might parse everything straight into an enum. Who knows!
I will say that with Swift embedded being a thing it seems like there is already some ideas how to make working with Base 256 data more comfy.
- what I've said before on that topic specifically: Embedded Swift - #141 by carlynorama
- signs that thinking is being done: SE-0243: Codepoint and Character Literals - #341 by Ben_Cohen
Lots of good ideas in this thread! Gonna try them all!