Quote from: M3ta7h3adDocumentation on my course accounted for something like 80% of the mark. 20% being given to implementation.

Having worked as a developer in the real world, thats a joke.
The BA Airmiles system for example has virtually no documentation, they dont have time.

Quote from: M3ta7h3adIf you have experience in IT in a specific area, and you require that knowledge for a job it will get you further than a degree will. You dont require it at all. Its useful, but after 10 years in employment its very rare that you will actually get asked about your previous qualifications unless they are industry specific I.E. Prince2 or ITIL... Sam has suggested he was developing prior to me being born, would have thought 23 years of development would be enough experience for any job.

Youre very opininated Metalhead and think you know it all. You see I never actually said it had to be a website, I just said I wanted it to be a website, and now youve gone off on one about how easy and pathetic the website suggestions are. You also have zero idea how the university system works here and are again making incorrect assumptions about the level of ability / effort required for classes.

Quote from: Sam

Quote from: M3ta7h3adIf you have experience in IT in a specific area, and you require that knowledge for a job it will get you further than a degree will. You dont require it at all. Its useful, but after 10 years in employment its very rare that you will actually get asked about your previous qualifications unless they are industry specific I.E. Prince2 or ITIL... Sam has suggested he was developing prior to me being born, would have thought 23 years of development would be enough experience for any job.

Youre very opininated Metalhead and think you know it all. You see I never actually said it had to be a website, I just said I wanted it to be a website, and now youve gone off on one about how easy and pathetic the website suggestions are. You also have zero idea how the university system works here and are again making incorrect assumptions about the level of ability / effort required for classes.

Have a look at your own topic title mate.

Then the assumptions im making with regards to requiring more effort than a simple website, must be over-egging the american degree pudding.

Ive not gone off on one at all about how easy and pathetic the website suggestions are. I read your first post, it said that you wanted something that hadnt been done before, and the one suggestion I naysayed was one that I am convinced has been done before in a commercial sense.

Have I mentioned anything against the sports stats site? no... its a bloody good idea. Have I mentioned anything against any of the other ideas, no.

The only reason "ease" came into is because Nexus was whining about how difficult my suggestion seemed. (its a piece of piss given 10 minutes thought).

As for documentation for the airmiles system being non-existant, then im shocked. And when it comes time to revamping it im pretty damn sure people dealing with reverse engineering will be chomping at the bit for a go at that. Youre telling me a corporate system is in play with no requirements being defined, no documentation for developers to follow, no test cases, no test criteria, no specification? I suppose its possible but it just serves how the importance of documentation needs to be ramped up within the developers mindset.

Quote from: Sam

Quote from: Eggtasticoyou can develop my idea sam & we go 50/50 ??

Ok pm me

msn - dont trust these weirdos

whats your MSN address?

Quote from: M3ta7h3adAs for documentation for the airmiles system being non-existant, then im shocked. And when it comes time to revamping it im pretty damn sure people dealing with reverse engineering will be chomping at the bit for a go at that. Youre telling me a corporate system is in play with no requirements being defined, no documentation for developers to follow, no test cases, no test criteria, no specification? I suppose its possible but it just serves how the importance of documentation needs to be ramped up within the developers mindset.

Youd be surprised/shocked at how things work in my place then. Tis a small firm and they are changing things now but a lot of stuff isnt really documented and certain issues do just have to be fixed by people just looking at the code. If we need to change a bit of code rapidly then a developer simply does it and then the patch is sent to the client.

Fact is the clients will still pay several million or so for a license and a couple of million a year each for support.

Quote from: DaveYoud be surprised/shocked at how things work in my place then. Tis a small firm and they are changing things now but a lot of stuff isnt really documented and certain issues do just have to be fixed by people just looking at the code. If we need to change a bit of code rapidly then a developer simply does it and then the patch is sent to the client.

Fact is the clients will still pay several million or so for a license and a couple of million a year each for support.

my company is different. Everything is documented. anything new, gets documented, but they have to be to get their little goverment stamp thing that gets assesed every 6 months.

Quote from: M3ta7h3adAs for documentation for the airmiles system being non-existant, then im shocked. And when it comes time to revamping it im pretty damn sure people dealing with reverse engineering will be chomping at the bit for a go at that. Youre telling me a corporate system is in play with no requirements being defined, no documentation for developers to follow, no test cases, no test criteria, no specification? I suppose its possible but it just serves how the importance of documentation needs to be ramped up within the developers mindset.

This just shows youve not yet worked in a variety of companies, as Dave has backed me up.
You dont need to reverse engineer anything just because you dont have documentation do you, thats when you lose the code.

(Very few companies use test cases mate, its about quick testing and getting it live

Quote from: M3ta7h3adHave a look at your own topic title mate.

My title doesnt say "US Degree requires project to be website" !

Quote from: Sam

Quote from: M3ta7h3adAs for documentation for the airmiles system being non-existant, then im shocked. And when it comes time to revamping it im pretty damn sure people dealing with reverse engineering will be chomping at the bit for a go at that. Youre telling me a corporate system is in play with no requirements being defined, no documentation for developers to follow, no test cases, no test criteria, no specification? I suppose its possible but it just serves how the importance of documentation needs to be ramped up within the developers mindset.

This just shows youve not yet worked in a variety of companies, as Dave has backed me up.
You dont need to reverse engineer anything just because you dont have documentation do you, thats when you lose the code.

(Very few companies use test cases mate, its about quick testing and getting it live

Reverse engineering can be used to determine the initial requirements of a project. Reverse engineering for code is one thing, but theres the documentation that can be derived, also use it to determine database schemas.

No test cases? Granted smaller ones may not, smaller projects may just rely on developers doing their own unit testing, and forgo integration testing but testing in general at least from what ive seen is a huge part of most projects. Granted ive not worked in such a variety as yourself or dave, but im working for a company now that interfaces with many others.

They all work in a similar manner, strictly adhering to project methodologies, be they agile or otherwise.

As for the title... no but it indicates you yourself specifically want a website idea.

Quote from: M3ta7h3adAs for the title... no but it indicates you yourself specifically want a website idea.

Exactly, which is what I said a couple of posts ago that you argued with.
I said, I wanted one, not that it was required, but you argued with me

To quote John Dies at the End...(It seems quite apt in this circumstance)

QuoteSilence again.

"That is, I'm referring to my cock being bigger than either of yours."

Big Jim hesitated, then said, "Please. My cock's cock is bigger than your cock."

John retorted, "You don't even exist. We're all just a figment of my cock's imagination."

Quote from: M3ta7h3adNo test cases? Granted smaller ones may not, smaller projects may just rely on developers doing their own unit testing, and forgo integration testing but testing in general at least from what ive seen is a huge part of most projects. Granted ive not worked in such a variety as yourself or dave, but im working for a company now that interfaces with many others.

Ive not worked in a variety tbh..

we do use test cases btw (though Im not personally involved in QA) however not having much in the way of documentation is fairly common - it isnt like the public sector or defence stuff tbh... some things need to be fixed a lot more rapidly & developers right up to director level can be woken up 24/7 or even when on holiday.

Quote from: Sam

Quote from: M3ta7h3adDocumentation on my course accounted for something like 80% of the mark. 20% being given to implementation.

Having worked as a developer in the real world, thats a joke.
The BA Airmiles system for example has virtually no documentation, they dont have time.

Metal assumed I had no experience programming, I wrote an entire database for a company within six weeks back on an old 8086 using dos, machine code and basic. The reason was they had spent the previous four months trying to work out how a commercial package of the time worked, the documentation was terrible. Half of what I did was precisely what hes talking about, getting the documentation and training materials ready. When I went back a couple of years later they were still using my system, simply because it worked and it had never needed anyone to go in and alter it. Even so it was documented throughout so that virtually any programmer could quickly find out what was happening and where.

Usually having no documentation is a recipe for pouring money needlessly down the drain, which is what BA seem to love doing IMO.

[edit]Nearly forgot, most successful internet ideas are relatively simple in concept, its how much you want to put behind them that makes the difference.[/edit]

Quote from: SeriousMetal assumed I had no experience programming, I wrote an entire database for a company within six weeks back on an old 8086 using dos, machine code and basic.

explain how/why you needed to use machine code cos my bullsh*t meter is going off the scale......

I see this threads gone off topic but arent you a first/second year of an undergrad degree?  If thats the case then your project requires nothing in the form of individuality or novel idea.  In the first two years youre assessed purely on your ability to implement something.  Masters degree its using other resources and combining them in a novel way -i.e. a flickr and facebook bridge or something.  Just dont overdo it as it would be a waste of your time


That said, if I was you and going for marks in academia with no financial concerns Id be working on contextual data.  Build a system that strips data from a huge data source and lets the user subscribe/view specific things based on that descriptive data.  Facebooks the obvious one right now with the objects being people and the events being posts, pictures, etc.  Theres no reason that any other object cant be described like this and brought together in the same way.  Harvesting useful info from a big site like Amazon would be good.

As you mentioned music theres no reason you couldnt apply it to do something along the lines of your last.fm idea and essentially add in basic contextual/MPEG 7 descriptor stuff.  Make the objects artists, songs, albums or whatever.  Have the events be new album releases, new people joining a record label signings, chart information, download stats, etc.

A user could add a band or song they like and get notifications of new releases and progress in things like charts.  That info could all be datamined from itunes/amazon/bbc charts, lastfm, etc.  Add in some social stuff of "what are my friends listening to", festival/event listings harvested from public sites and you get a decent modular site.  Should be totally modular.  Social networking is basically just contectual web 3.0 stuff but has only been applied to people.  The rest is coming so might as well ninja the grades before these services are already live.


Its overkill for a first year final project of course but you seem keen.  It would work well for a 3rd year final thesis as it would be varied, easily broken down into chunks, be based on existing technologies you could reference in the writeup, be very web 3.0/contextual orientated, have social networking stuff and be technically challenging enough with data harvesting, database gubbins and front end coding.