awful and unclean solution

aoc16.py

with open('day16challengeinput','r') as f:
	data = f.read().split(',')

moves = []

for move in data:
	if move[0] == 's':
		moves.append( (0, int(move[1:])) )
	elif move[0] == 'x':
		moves.append( (1, int(move[1:].split('/')[0]), int(move[1:].split('/')[1])) )
	elif move[0] == 'p':
		moves.append( (2, ord(move[1:].split('/')[0]), ord(move[1:].split('/')[1])) )

programs = [ord(x) for x in 'abcdefghijklmnop']

for r in range(int(1e9)):

	if r % 1000 == 0 or r == 2:
		print(r,''.join([chr(x) for x in programs]))

	for move in moves:
		if move[0] == 0:
			amount = move[1]
			programs[:0] = programs[-amount:]
			del programs[-amount:]
	
		elif move[0] == 1:
			posA = move[1]
			posB = move[2]
			atPosA = programs[posA]
			atPosB = programs[posB]
			programs[posA] = atPosB
			programs[posB] = atPosA
	
		elif move[0] == 2:
			posA = programs.index(move[1])
			posB = programs.index(move[2])
			atPosA = programs[posA]
			atPosB = programs[posB]
			programs[posA] = atPosB
			programs[posB] = atPosA

print('done')
print(''.join([chr(x) for x in programs]))