Earlier this week, I went to a local bookbinders who specialise in binding theses and dissertations, and got my magnum opus bound (one hardback and four softback copies). I collected them on Thursday.

Holding the results in my hands made it all seem more real, somehow. Up until then I hadn't really been aware of what I'd done. Not really. But to hold this 250-odd page book in my hands was quite something, I can tell you.

My next stop was to take some copies into work. I've donated one copy to the library, and gave another copy to the Assistant Principal who gave me permission to use the university's facilities. It seemed the least I could do; and he seemed touchingly pleased to have been given a copy.

I'm very lucky in that Liverpool University are not at all concerned about copies being distributed. Most universities claim copyright on all theses and dissertations and forbid any publication without their permission. Liverpool, fair play, just say that as long as their name is on it, and as long as proper acknowledgements are made, then they are perfectly happy.

This is what has allowed me to publish the final product on the Web. I'm very glad that I've been able to do that because I've promised a lot of people along the way that I'd provide them with copies of my results. That responsibility is now, happily, discharged.

Here is the URL to go to if you want to see the finished product:

http://www.peredur.uklinux.net/msc

And may the force be with you.

Although my dissertation submission is done electronically, I thought I'd get some hard copy versions bound. A number of people have given me a lot of help over the last eight months, so the least I can do is to present them with a copy of the completed magnum opus. I thought the university might be a bit sniffy about this, but in fact they're perfectly happy for me to publish and be damned.

I'm getting a hardback copy for myself, and then copies for people like the Assistant Principal at work who gave me permission to use the servers and put them on the LAN; and I thought I'd donate a copy to the library at the university where I work. The other thing I'm going to do is to put the dissertation up on the Web. I've created a little site on my local machine here at home. All I have to do now is to find an ISP to host it - uklinux.net are favourites at the moment.

Quite a few people on the Mono mailing list expressed an interest in seeing the results, as well as a number of people whose work I used or cited. Providing access via the Web seems the sensible thing to do.

Hopefully, Web access should be available within a day or two. The hard copies will be available for collection in the late afternoon in three day's time.

Hmmm. Never noticed that before. You don't have a word for the day after the day after tomorrow in English, do you? In Welsh, we have:

• echdoe = the day before yesterday
• doe = yesterday
• heddiw = today
• yfory = tomorrow
• trenydd = the day after tomorrow
• tradwy = the day after the day after tomorrow

I'll post the URL for the Web site when I've set it up.

The other thing I found out, is that the Academic Board does not meet again until October. That means that no grade will be officially awarded until then. I asked my supervisor if that meant I'd have no indication as to whether I'd passed or failed until October. She replied by saying, "I wouldn't be concerned, Peter". That's probably the best I can hope for

Following my last draft submission, I got this from my supervisor:

"So ... my advice is to say 'OK, enough!'. Repost it with the subject line 'Final Version' and I will signal the academic administrator that you are complete :-)"

It's posted. It's done. It's over.

This is such a strange feeling. My wife is offering bereavement counselling.

Watch this space if you want to know how I get on.

There are no blog entries for six weeks and then two come along together.

The news is that I have a final draft submitted to my supervisor. It's unlikely that there will be any major changes at this stage. As far as I can tell, apart from some minor formatting alterations and perhaps a couple of additions to the appendices, that's it. I'm just waiting to hear what my supervisor says. If she's happy, my next submission will be the final one.

Strange feeling.

For the statisticians among you, the dissertation consists of 257 pages, with six chapters, twelve appendices, twenty-two tables and nine figures.

Once I am able to, I'll put the document up on the Web somewhere so that you can all look at it. Some of you may even want to read it!

Did you miss me?

Well, it turned out that I had way too much material. Once the online experiment was over and I started messing about with the results it gave and comparing them to the results I'd found from elsewhere, my word count shot up. The result was that I had to cut and cut and cut some more.

I imagine that this is what real writers have to do. It was hard, hard work; and the reason why you've not heard from me for so long.

First I had to go through and, "Torri'r garw" as we say in Wales - break up the easy stuff. This involved simply going through every section I'd written and asking, "Does this really contribute to the aim of the project?". It meant saying goodbye to some close friends. For example, there was a section explaining the legal background to the genesis of .NET, with Microsoft losing to Sun in court and, basically, taking their ball home with them. I thought it read rather well: but this is not a project about software legalities, interesting as they are, so it had to go.

Once that was done, the next process was to go through every sentence asking, "Can I say this in fewer words?". Very often, you can. And very often it makes the meaning clearer as well.

Lastly, there remained the process of examining every adjective and every adverb and asking, "Is this really necessary? Will the meaning change or be less clear if it's taken out?" It's amazing what you can get rid of in this way. But it is hard, hard work. Did I already say that?

Having got the word count down to something reasonable, all the loose ends had to be tidied. Every reference has to be checked and put into the correct format (Harvard, if you're interested). There's an abstract to write, acknowledgements, tables of contents, lists of tables, lists of figures, appendices ...

And then you have to make sure that the formatting is exactly to the specification demanded by the university.

I'm just about there. I have a few more appendices to sort out; and I've got to make sure the page numbering works correctly and is in the correct format; and I have to add the page numbers to the table of contents and the lists of tables and figures. These are things to do at the very end.

By the time it's finished it will be well over two hundred pages in length (including all the appendices and what have you). But the end is in sight. I'm nearly there.

The deadline for submission, which is done electronically so there are no worries about postal delays and so on, is 28th April 2006. I should just make it. I'm off work until then anyway, so I've no excuse.

My supervisor seems happy with it, too. So I really can do no more.

Sorry for the rambling tone of this entry. But I thought that those of you who've been following along deserved an update.

Who knows, I might have completed it all by the time I make another entry? Fingers crossed.