I am just before submission. As I am working in the EE field, there are large amount of program source code from my PhD. It's impossible to have it as appendix in the form of paper. A CD may sort things out, but it is still troublesome, since there are at least three different kinds of codes(I mean codes in three different languages) and they all need different compiling environment and a lot document to be understood.

So I wonder How necessary to have these source code in my thesis. Will examiner try to look into it（I don't think they will try to understand my thesis in such detail, as that could be very time consuming and even impossible).

Any ideas?

What has your supervisor said? Have you looked at any thesis done by people who used to be in your group?

I have tonnes of code but none of it will be going in to my thesis. I don't see any reason why the examiner would want to look at it (I think my thesis would be at least 4 times the length if I included it). You will have said how your programs/algorithms work using some other method, pseudocode, flowcharts etc so there is no need to look at the code.

======= Date Modified 16 Sep 2008 08:46:58 =======
Past PhDs in my labs doesn't have it in the thesis. But I know another PhD student in other group did has all source code as burnt CD included in the thesis. Her supervisor asked her to do that, even he also don't believe examiner will look into it, but just in case.

BTW, H , do you any piece of source code as appendix in your thesis?

======= Date Modified 16 Sep 2008 13:07:34 =======
Nope, there will be no source code anywhere in my thesis, including the appendix.

My supervisors wouldn't even bother to look at the code (they don't program in the same language) and I don't see the examiner ever needing it. However it might be different for your field. I would avoid putting it in the appendix, it just seems a waste of space. If your supervisor recommends, then definitely burn it onto a CD and make sure it's available for the examiner.

I agree with the flow diagram idea - maybe put some examples of code in too. But I can't imagine they would check it line by line, or try to run it themselves.