Final Year Projects/ Latex

I still frequently get emails from people who I don't know saying "Thanks for your Latex template", which is always nice to hear. It also reminds me that I should probably post the materials here, so that google will find them a bit easier. (Currently the only way to find them is through the Minds events page)

I've always found it funny how in our CSSE degree your final year thesis accounts for 25% percent of your final mark, but it evaluates students on material that the course simply doesn't cover, namely

• Scientific Writing: If you can't write a good report, its unlikely you'll do well. However if you can't develop a good program you can still score surprisingly high
• Software Engineering: Bit of a contentious one here, in my opinion things like Unit testing, Bug Tracking, Source Control, Specifications, UML form the basis of Software Engineering. It is basically Industry Best Practices, but taught in University. Unfortunately we don't cover any of the above (or at least I didn't in my couse)
• Presentational Skills: You have to do a 10 minute presentation of the thesis, and effectively sell it to your markers.

Code Quality, and System Design always seem to play second fiddle to a thesis jam packed with internet quotes, often I have seen good projects score poorly, and weak projects score average. It just doesn't seem right to me. That said, I think the whole thing should be done away with. If I had my way your "thesis" should result in a 6-8 paper in the following manner...

If your project was science based then you would do it in an academic style (E.g. 2 column, graphs, Addressing research questions etc). The emphasis would be on data gathered, results, significance etc. There would be little concern about system design, as thats not what you are selling yourself on.

If your project was a Software Engineering one (i.e. one with an end product, either finished or prototype) then you effectively write a whitepaper complete with pretty screenshots, and promoting all the features and also explaining the internal architecture of the system with appropriate diagrams. You would also be expected to supply your source tree/ testing data etc.

What's nicest about this is that it's far harder to hide bullshit in an 8 page paper than it is in a 40 page thesis. The workload on staff and student would be drastically reduced without any drop in standards. What do people think of this? Please leave a comment!

But I originally wanted to mention my scientific writing webpage. It can be found here: www.minds.may.ie/~dez/latex/ It contains rough instructions for installing latex, it also contains a sample thesis file, and some handouts on scientific writing. All in all its a pretty good deal I'm not gonna go into why you should use LaTeX. I believe it to be better. I am most certainly not alone. If you're really interested in Why, leave a comment, I don't want to litter the weblog with anti-Microsoft Word sentiments, its a decent enough product.

If you wan't a good visual editor for Latex (i.e. a Microsoft Word Style editor) use Lyx , which Baruch has contributed code to. Also available are TexMaker(All platforms) and Kile (Linux only)