I'm usually a rule follower, but this is a rule that I choose not to follow. I have a couple of reasons:
- I've spent effort on this, and I want the repository to work in future. I want to be able to clone it and run all the code without having to fetch the input once more, even if the site is unavailable. (I actually do this while benchmarking new hardware).
- I don't think it actually hurts the creator in any way, in my opinion. Here's an example: At least 660 people have uploaded inputs from 2022 (https://github.com/search?q=%22closest+beacon+is+at+x%22+pat...). These files have been up for 2 years. Exactly what injury has the creator suffered because of this? Are there people out there thinking "nah, it's too much effort to log into adventofcode.com, I'll just trawl GitHub repos for inputs and figure out what I'm supposed to do from there"? Obviously not.
So I have a compelling interest, and the creator hasn't articulated a good reason to avoid it. If he's able to articulate a good reason, then I'm willing to reassess my stance on this. He has my sympathy and full support if someone creates a lookalike site with the same puzzles and inputs but different CSS and without ads. That would be messed up. The potential injury is clear - he'd be losing users to the lookalike.
This is a subject of some controversy in the AOC community, but nothing I've read in those threads so far has been compelling. Anti-storage arguments usually just come down to "he's asking nicely so please comply". To which I politely respond that I don't accede to every polite request that comes my way.
- I've spent effort on this, and I want the repository to work in future. I want to be able to clone it and run all the code without having to fetch the input once more, even if the site is unavailable. (I actually do this while benchmarking new hardware).
- I don't think it actually hurts the creator in any way, in my opinion. Here's an example: At least 660 people have uploaded inputs from 2022 (https://github.com/search?q=%22closest+beacon+is+at+x%22+pat...). These files have been up for 2 years. Exactly what injury has the creator suffered because of this? Are there people out there thinking "nah, it's too much effort to log into adventofcode.com, I'll just trawl GitHub repos for inputs and figure out what I'm supposed to do from there"? Obviously not.
So I have a compelling interest, and the creator hasn't articulated a good reason to avoid it. If he's able to articulate a good reason, then I'm willing to reassess my stance on this. He has my sympathy and full support if someone creates a lookalike site with the same puzzles and inputs but different CSS and without ads. That would be messed up. The potential injury is clear - he'd be losing users to the lookalike.
This is a subject of some controversy in the AOC community, but nothing I've read in those threads so far has been compelling. Anti-storage arguments usually just come down to "he's asking nicely so please comply". To which I politely respond that I don't accede to every polite request that comes my way.