32,000 words...

[fwgx]

and counting, and my final year project SILL isn't finished! This is getting ridiculous! I'm on over 180 pages and I still have 2.5 chapters to do! Damn it.

[eleet-2k2]

Is that the final project you wanted the first chapter or intro proof-read for?

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

How many students are doing this? And are the teachers actually going to read this?

[morgado]

Good question. Will anyone actually read this ?!
I don't doubt it's good ... not this ..
It's just that ... is too much words ...
:)

[Hollow]

This is what? Final year of HS? I know people whose PhD thesis was't that long.

[fwgx]

Originally posted by eleet-2k2
Is that the final project you wanted the first chapter or intro proof-read for? Yup.

I guess 150 students, about 8-10 per tutor.

It's double spaced mind and only about 80 pages are the main content of it. The rest are appendicies that include a 15 page requirements spec, a risk analysis, a test plan, test cases, test results, design diagrams, 8 pages on a previous idea for a project etc etc. I'm onto appendix O I think (a,b,c...O!!!) The contents page is actually 3 pages!

Hollow: final year computer science project

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

Holy shit, man.

[d0rk]

What exactly is it on?

[fwgx]

a delta compression download utility. Aimed at 56kers to reduce the download size of files that are updated often.

[d0rk]

You could get rich off of that :)

[Coman]

submit one sheet of paper that says: get a cable.

[lostonline]

That's a big document to write :eek:

[Lapikas]

My final year project is going to be about 30 pages.. Max. And I'm on page 10 :D
180 pages!! Damn, that's one hell of a pile of paper.

[fwgx]

Have a gander at it =\:

Open office format (http://www.philybaby.co.uk/uni/project/report-7-3-2004.sxw)
PDF format (http://www.philybaby.co.uk/uni/project/report-15-4-2004.pdf)

[Lapikas]

Well.. like I have anything better to do..

Reading...........

[Hollow]

heading for the kettle

heh.

[fwgx]

bloody hell, you got that far!

[Hollow]

heh actually i read a good deal of it ~60 pages. That was by far the best expression in it.

[k_rock923]

i could have used a compression utility for downloading that. . .

[Kickboy12]

Originally posted by k_rock923
i could have used a compression utility for downloading that. . .

No kiddin...
Takin me a while to download. It'll finish eventually.

[horse-fly]

oh god!

[fwgx]

This is quite sweet.

If you wanted to upgrade from version 3.3.2 to 3.3.3 of the gcc-java compiler you would currently have to download a 4.5MB gziped file. Using the wonders of my program you now only need 700K to get the new tar file! That's a 6.5x decrease in bandwidth use!

I'll finish off analysing its performance on different file types tomorrow.

[Too-DAMN-Much]

Originally posted by Phily Baby
Using the wonders of my program you now only need 700K to get the new tar file! That's a 6.5x decrease in bandwidth use!

uhhhh....
weren't .tar files made to be inherently smaller in the first place? :D

[fwgx]

no. Tar files aren't compressed, they're just a package of files in one file. That's why a lot of things you find on the net are in .tar.gz format, because first the files are packaged together into one file and are then compressed.

I've also managed to get the 145MB gcc3.3.3.tar package to compress down to 7.5MB. But as the program runs off file differences it's very poor on gziped files because even small changes in the contents causes big changes throughout the whole file. So on a 4.5MB gziped file the delta actually comes out at 6.6MB, which is larger than downloading the new version anyway!

[prodangle]

I'm in my second last year of an ESE (Electronic and Software Engineering) degree just now. I just handed my project report in a few weeks ago. It was 90 pages long, with no double spacing - it was done by a team of 4, and did have a lot of diagrams though :)

[indicavia]

Originally posted by Phily Baby
I've also managed to get the 145MB gcc3.3.3.tar package to compress down to 7.5MB.
that sounds sweet! :) I don't get how it's possible to do anything like that..!

just one coment on your report: "Internet" is writen with a capital "I".. :D

[fwgx]

not in my book!

[k_rock923]

well it's not a book yet but i'm sure you could make it long enough to be a book if you wanted to.

[fwgx]

Final size is 187 pages and 40,870 words! :eek:

report [pdf] (http://www.philybaby.co.uk/uni/project/report-23-4-2004.pdf)
report [OOo sxw] (http://www.philybaby.co.uk/uni/project/report-23-4-2004-final.sxw)

And if you were wondering, this is what it looks like:
http://www.philybaby.co.uk/pictures/fyp.jpg

And I had to print two copies.

Also, if you find any errors don't tell me, I'm not changing it anymore and I'm quite happy to be ignorant.

[lostonline]

Well done! Might have a look through it if I get some time, seems like quite an interesting project.

[prodangle]

Out of interest, how did you fine Openoffice for writing such a long report? I know people who have written thesis in Word, and it's absolutely terrible. After you get over something like 50 pages, word just takes ages to load up the document or do anything.

I used latex to write my report. It can be a real pain sometimes, but it's easy to split the document up into multiple parts and edit it via CVS, which is good for a team project. It also produces very professional looking documents.

[fwgx]

It's quirky but it did the job ok i guess. It requires a different mind set for a lot of things. Also the syles are weird, you apply a sytle to some text but it's more dependent on the current text style than the ones your trying to set. In the end I wrote down what each subheading style was and went through it all changing it. didn't take too long but was very annoying.

[MikeHunt79]

Oh man, 40,000 words? Don't you have a word limit or somthing?

Mine's due in in 2 weeks, and I'm meant to be doing it now. Currently, source code with comments = 20,000 words. Need to get the rest done now. Oh, and for the project I put a computer in my car, and am running winamp 5 on it with a home-made skin, hence source code. :D

[fwgx]

There was a very loosly reccomended page limit but no word limit. I wrote 7000 lines of code too.

And I've just spent the past 6 or 7 hours panicking because I realised it didn't actually work. Thankfully it does now and even bigger thanks that it doesn't affect my analysis I've already done.

It's done, printed bound, code finished, CD of code made and stuck to the report. Now I just have to get up in time to hand it it.

[MikeHunt79]

Good to hear u got the code going... I reackon that's gonna feel so good once you've given it in. :)

FWIW, We have an 8000 word limit, but that doesn't included what's in the appendix. Anyway, I'd better get away from the forums and back to bloody Microsoft Word.