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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Back in October, I wrote down some ideas on how
public funds ought to be invested in energy software. I shared the paper with a
few friends, but have not "gone public" with it. Since a lot of the issues
raised in the "hornet's nest" series are addressed in the paper, I feel now is
an appropriate time to share my views with others. The central theme of the
proposed policy is that public investments ought to be made in a way that
encourage private sector software developers to invest their own funds. This
will leverage scarce public funds. Too often public investments in energy
software have had the opposite effect, causing private developers to scale back
or even withdraw from the business. The paper </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>offers guidelines, which I think would achieve this goal. At this point,
the opinions in the policy paper are mine and mine alone.</FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>. I welcome your comments.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>To address a few additional points raised in the
"hornet's nest" series:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>VisualDOE 2.6 has a rudimentary link with CADD
programs that works OK, but is not perfect. The problem is that about 90% or
more of CADD files are not object oriented. In reality they are little more than
a collection of lines, arcs and circles. We can recognize a line in the file,
but often do not know if it represents a edge of a wall, the centerline of a
duct, or a joint in the concrete floor. Until more CADD programs become object
oriented and carry around the properties that matter to modelers, there is not
much point in making a link. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The latest version of VisualDOE, Version 3.0, works
with DOE-2.2. An announcement was made in the Summer 1999 issue of the User's
News. However, the newsletter editors removed all reference to "DOE-2.2" before
the article was published, so the only way to know that DOE-2.2 is supported is
to make a connection with the new features that are discussed in the article.
The "hornet's nest" has prevented us from officially releasing Version 3.0.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Charles Eley</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eley Associates</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="mailto:charles@eley.com">charles@eley.com</A></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>