[esp-r] Re: ESP-r users conference

Mon Feb 26 22:29:17 GMT 2007

For those of you who missed this announcement. This is a text
version of the html message that was posted on the 5th of February.

There have been somewhat more than a dozen expressions of interest
and no doubt more people will contact us prior to the event.

You will not that there are spaces in the form below for those who
want to make a short presentation to supply further information.

I am out of the office and so I do not have access to accommodation
information but if you send a message to Jeremy Cockroft <jeremy at esru.strath.ac.uk
he should be able to send you some options for accommodation close
to the University of Strathclyde.

Regards, Jon Hand

---------------------------------------

Announcement:  ESP-r Developers Conference

Venue:  Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow Scotland

Date: 22-24 March 2007

Cost: 100 Pounds (to cover lunches and refreshments and administrative overheads)

The Energy Systems Research Unit of the University of Strathclyde are pleased to announce the 3rd ESP-r Developers Conference to be held in Glasgow this March.

Overview

Much has happened since the ESP-r community last gathered:

q       ESP-r is well into its transition from using X11 graphics to the multi-platform GTK graphics tool kit.

q       A Beta version of windows ESP-r has been released.

q       Self-extracting installers have been introduced for each of the major computing platforms.

q       ESP-r development has been placed under a central source code repository - there have been more than 700 commits to the repository since March of 2006!

q       A formal testing procedure for source code developments has been put in place.

q       The Install process has been rewritten, and new features added.  For example, it is no longer necessary for ESP-r to be located in /usr/esru

q       A new email list for the core development team is up and running providing notification of changes in each of the development branches.

q       New Exemplar models and facilities for managing model variants have been introduced.

q       Many new features have been added. For example: new detailed component models have been developed for plant and commercial scale systems models have been developed; contaminant tracking and coupling of CFD to building models have been made more user friendly.

One of the functions of the conference will be to highlight these developments. However the main focus will be to discuss the options for continuing the development of ESP-r into the future.  

Conference Details

The conference will cover a range of topics relating to the future development of ESP-r. Each session will feature presentations and a discussion on an important development topic. Each session will be moderated and the discussion and outcomes will be recorded with a view to producing conference proceedings and a development strategy document. 

Thursday session 1: Introduction and Review

Opening announcements and a review of the current state of ESP-r.

Thursday session 2: Development Issues

There are two issues that confront the community, which ultimately will dictate the survival of the code:

q       ESP-r needs to attract new users, as it is from new users that new developers emerge. Currently ESP-r, while being an incredibly powerful tool, does not conform to novice user expectations, the result being that new users are discouraged from using the tool and consequently lose many potential developers.  How can we evolve the tool to develop a thriving user community?

q       ESP-r has recently passed several critical CEN standards but is continually confronted by changes in regulatory standards and the need to evolve so as to gain accreditation. What opportunities exist to fund vital accreditation work?

This session will evolve a list of tasks and issues to carry forward to subsequent sessions.

Thursday session 3: Interface

The ESP-r interface has served the community well, however a lack of funding has limited development and in its current form problems are emerging as highlighted above for new users but also in the general development and management of simulation projects. These problems could be addressed by leveraging the substantial wealth of interface widgets that GTK offers to bring ESP-r in line with user expectations.  However there is currently a lack of interface development in the community to progress this task at an acceptable pace.

This session is focused on finding the means to accelerate the evolution of the interface and developing the guidelines and key objectives for future interface development.

Thursday evening dinner

Details TBC

Friday session 1: Mainstreaming Advanced Features

ESP-r has a number of lesser-used advanced features that require a lot of expert knowledge to use, effectively hiding them from the user community. This session is focused on developing a strategy to bring the power of ESP-r’s advanced features to the rest of the community.

Friday session 2: Improving Information Retrieval

ESP-r produces a wealth of data from a simulation yet there are significant issues as to how this data is stored and analysed. Simulation information is often scattered across several results libraries. Further, information data such as fan power or the overall performance of environmental systems made up from a network of detailed components needs to be derived from the raw simulation data and involves significant user effort. Finally it is difficult to compare the performance of different model variants.

This session is focused on improving results processing facilities to better support performance analysis.  The session will also seek to identify where critical model  attributes need to be extended in order to deliver more appropriate performance information.

Friday session 3: Wrap-up and outcomes

This session brings together the consensus from the earlier sessions (session chairs report) for discussion and decision making.

The goal of the session is a list of specific actions, likely contributors and potential  resources which can be distributed to the community at the end of the conference.

------------------------------------

Saturday Morning Workshop: Source Code Control

The move to subversion has had many implications for the evolution of ESP-r. This session is designed to introduce the mechanics of source code control tothe development community.

Session 1:

Review of the structure of the archive and working practices.

Session 2:

Workshop with hands-on experience in the use of subversion tasks and the development cycle

Session 3:

Open discussion on how we leverage source code control to work in distributed teams and to tackle major projects.

------------------------------------

If you would be interested in attending please reply by return e-mail. Further details will be sent soon

-------------------------
[  ] I would like to attend.
      Name:
      Organisation:
      email:
      telephone:

Further information:

[  ] I would like to moderate a session
     session name:_________

[  ] I have a presentation for one of the sessions
     session name:_________
     title of presentation:___________
     length of presentation [ max. 10 minutes]

[  ] I want to take part in the Saturday subversion skills workshop

[  ]  I have a source code branch
      branch name:________

[  ]  I am thinking about joining the development community

[  ]  I have an idea for the development of ESP-r and I want to find others to work with:
      development description:____
      skills I have:____
      ideas for contributions by others:____

Regards,

-ESRU

-----Original Message-----
From: esp-r-bounces at lists.strath.ac.uk on behalf of esp-r at h-rd.org
Sent: Mon 2/26/2007 10:58 AM
To: esp-r at lists.strath.ac.uk
Cc: esp-r at h-rd.org
Subject: [esp-r]  ESP-r users conference

Dear ESP-r users,

The planned date for the ESP-r users conference is coming close.  Is
there already information on the schedule of the conference available?
Is there some "preferred" accommodation?

I would like to have more information, before making my bookings and  
making the final decision to attend.

By the way, who is planning to attend?

yours,

Marc

-- 
Marc Hoffmann
esp-r at h-rd.org
http://www.h-rd.org

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