Citing myself on my CS Final Year Project? Is it as weird as it sounds [to me]?

Question

I've developed a graphical IDE for my Final Year Project, basically it lets the user draw the user experience diagram of a webapp, then he/she is supposed to assign HTML templates to the pages and add C++ code to the connectors, that will be executed once the webapp is running and someone clicks on a link. The IDE generates all the C++ code needed, and compiles it through make command, delivering a webapp in a single executable with a simple web server embedded in it.

I've made a big effort to write a well founded dissertation, e.g., because I'm generating C++ code and storing them in files, I'm using thread pools and Swing Workers to build a responsive GUI. Similar problems I've faced a few years ago, when I was involved in project to move a single-thread desktop GIS to a multi-threaded environment. So I ended up citing myself on my dissertation, explaining other situations where the use of threads in order to avoid blocking the Event Dispatching Thread, in a Java Swing context, is an essential requirement.

My lastname appears next to Doug Lea, Edward Tufte... people I admire and I've been learning from through the years: Isn't it to pretentious/arrogant?

Answer 1

I don't think so. If what you've written earlier is useful in the context of what you're writing then cite it. In fact, not doing so and re-iterating the same point in the publication again is probably a waste of time and paper for both you and the reader. Simply saying “I did that before” and not telling where isn't good practice either.

Many researchers cite earlier works of themselves, especially if they improve on it or thinking ideas further. And those are for the most part also rather small names amidst the people they cite as well.

Just imagine you would have to leave almost every other name out from your bibliography just because you cite a work by Knuth. I don't think it works that way.