Theoretically, half of my time at university was meant to be spent doing computer science. It worked out (for one reason or another) as substantially more than that, so of course I've managed to collect quite a bit of code junk along the way. I've separated this page into two sections, based upon the dual roles played by anyone unfortunate enough to be the only person in a family (or house, or commune, or platoon) doing a course with "computer" in its title.

Academic Activities

Honours

Well, I spent a year on it so it has to be good! The title of my honours project was An Empirical Study of Java-Based Web Application Architectures, and this is the abstract:

Tiered architectures are widely used in the construction of commercial web applications because they are commonly perceived, and often cited, as a mechanism for the production of high quality software systems. Unfortunately, this perception is rarely supported by empirical analysis, an issue that this thesis addresses.

Two types of tiered architecture - two-tier and three-tier - are implemented as non-trivial, commercial-quality web applications. These applications are then empirically evaluated, and the results are used to compare the two implemented architectures, and to analyse the quality of the implemented applications.

The comparative analysis focuses on two system properties, robustness and performance, and concludes that twońtier architectures are more robust, but three-tier architectures are capable of greater performance. The qualitative analysis concludes that the tiered architecture does produce high quality web applications, but only if the architecture is well suited to the system's purpose. In addition, guidance is given for the selection of a suitable tiered architecture through a set of recommendations, the most important of which being that the architecture should optimise systemcomplexity.

The implementation, evaluation and analysis veri.es the quality of the tiered architecture type as a model for the construction of commercial web applications, and thereby contributes to the creation of better electronic commerce systems.

I have actually decided that a better thing to do would be to make the first four chapters of my thesis downloadable. There are two good reasons for this: first, although, still quite large, the file is significantly smaller (at 628K); and second, if you really want to read the later, more interesting chapters, then you will have to let me know (and I will provide you with a copy):

Download a copy of thesis_extract.pdf

Coursework

Not sure what to put here yet, but I might make the 3D file browser that we did for Computer Graphics available for download. Of course, I will need to talk to Chris and Dan and make sure that it's ok with them! In the meantime, another product of my coursework, in the form of a datamining assignment, is available on the Eurovision page.

Teaching

Over the last three years I have taught three computer science courses for the ANU Department of Computer Science:

• Formal Methods in Software Engineering (COMP2600)
• Object-Oriented System Analysis and Design (now Software Analysis and Design) (COMP3110)
• Advanced Database Systems (COMP3420)

Unfortunately, with full-time work looming, this semester will be the last time that I tutor, at least for a while anyway.

Past Web Pages

The Home-Helpdesk

Wireless Networking

Yes, it works. No, it's not Linux. I've managed, mostly for personal interest, to build a wireless 802.11b network around the house, and since it was quite a pain to setup, at some point I might write down what I did. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the thought that it's amazing how obvious the difference between WiFi (11 Mbps) and Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) is when you're shunting stuff across the network. Which makes me wonder what speed will be fast enough to be good enough...

MP3 Collection

There will certainly be nothing in this section until I figure out some kind of password access-control mechanism. And no, this doesn't mean I will be publishing music to download, it just means that some kind of directory and/or discussion group might be a good idea.

Web Publishing

The History and Rationale page has a brief summary of how this site came into existence.