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AlBlue’s Blog

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PhD thesis finally accepted

2006 Phd

I'm pleased to report that my PhD Thesis has finally been accepted for publication by the University of Edinburgh. It has taken me 8 years to finish, and we're on our 3rd house since starting it, but I have finally got to the end of that part of the journey. I'd just like to thank my supervisors, Alan Bundy and Ian Stark, and my examiners, Paul Jackson and Mel Ó Cinnéide, for getting me to the finale. I hope to graduate in November 2006. In the meantime, here's the full list of acknowledgements from my Thesis:

I am indebted to Alan Bundy who has given me the freedom to work on this thesis whilst at the same time guiding me towards the final production and presentation of these results. I not would have been able to achieve this without Alan’s support through a sometimes difficult, but always busy part of my life. This project, and especially the production of this thesis, would not have been possible without the care and attention that Alan provided.

Ian Stark has provided invaluable feedback on all aspects of this thesis, from the low-level technical intricacies of Java’s design patterns through to the high-level structure of the thesis as a whole. Without doubt, he has caught many of the technical errors and inconsistencies of this thesis; the fact that this work stands as it is can be attributed to his detailed attention to proof reading. Any remaining errors are my own fault in transcribing his feedback of the work.

I would also like to thank my previous supervisors, Richard Boulton and Helen Lowe, who helped me during the early stages of this research project before other commitments took them aside. In addition, Andrew Ireland helped with some very early aspects, and in conjunction with Alan Bundy allowed me to realise that my ideas were worth investigating, and convinced me to start down the long path of a PhD. Jon Whittle gave me support and a path to follow as I started out on this thesis.

I would not have been able to do this thesis without the support of Adrian Jackson and others from International Object Solutions Limited, whose support allowed me to work in conjunction with EPSRC to create Hedgehog.

My thanks are also due to the proof readers who gave me pages of feedback on this thesis, in alphabetical order: Derek Blewitt, Robert Blewitt, Tony Brookes, Adrian Jackson and Gareth Webber. I would also like to thank some of the particularly influential people for encouraging me to achieve my full potential; Ian Nussey of IBM UK and ‘Doc’ Misell of Epsom College. My thanks also go to Koos van Tubergen of IBM NL for supporting me through the early stages of my PhD.

Lastly, I would especially like to thank my loving wife Amy, for putting up with me over the past few years with all the late nights (and sometimes early mornings) in working on this project.