doe2 website down?
I can't run equest and my students can't download equest. Does anyone know what is going on? Thanks! Update - the website is now working, but I still have not been able to run non-California locations (error loading the weather file). Update Oct 2, 2018: website is down again. Does anyone know how to contact the webmaster?
@david.denkenberger, I just downloaded eQUEST using this link: www.doe2.com/download/equest/eQUEST_3...
@david.denkenberger nice to see you on unmet hours! I'd suggest teaching your students on the OpenStudio platform instead of eQuest for a variety of reasons. I'd be happy to chat to walk you through that and share some content I've made for other courses.
I find comments like the one above to be offensive and inappropriate to the spirit of Unmet Hours as an open forum for the discussion of building energy modeling, not the promotion of any specific tool and certainly not the disparagement of one tool in favor of another. To suggest that to a teacher is particularly insidious, since students are the most vulnerable to whatever spin they are given.
Joe, I agree the comment would be inappropriate if it were about any other software than eQuest. I've used IES-VE, DesignBuilder, OpenStudio/EnergyPlus, and eQuest, and think DesignBuilder and IES-VE have uses in the current market. I've previously written about that on the forum. I don't think this applies to eQuest, as it is still using the DOE-2 engine, is under much less active development than the other software, and is decreasing in market share as researchers and modelers switch over to newer tools. (cont...)
...Features like Ladybug Tools, OpenStudio measures, the API, PAT, IES-VE Macroflo/controls are features that don't exist in eQuest, and I think students would be at disadvantage for not having exposure to those capabilities. I see eQuest as akin to teaching Fortran as a programming language instead of C++, Julia, or Python. Yes, students can get the concepts with Fortran, but it won't give a full picture of the state-of-the-art. (cont...)
...Perhaps my comment would have been better targeted to Prof.Denkenberger as an email, since I know him outside of Unmet Hours, but I don't see the comment itself as inappropriate for the forum. You are welcome to disagree, and I'd be happy to update my perception of eQuest if you think there are good reasons why I'm wrong in saying it is outdated. I'm still very appreciative of eQuest and all the work that went into making it; I learned on it, and think it has had the most years of service of any modeling tool.
Please keep these types of unsolicited subjective discussions off of Unmet Hours and focus on answering technical questions. Thanks, --"Management".
The reason I felt Matthew's comment was inappropriate was precisely for the reasons that Amir mentioned - the comment did not address any technical question and was unsolicited. Where I find it offensive was that it then proceeded to denigrate a particular program (eQUEST), which you've only doubled down wholesale after my response. I hope you realize how subjective are your follow-on comments about eQUEST. If you want to discuss the relative merits of eQUEST vs EnergyPlus, please look at this old article I posted in 2015.