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Evaluation of the PragTic Users' Meetings
The 1st PragTic Users' Meeting
Jan Papuga, CTU in Prague & Evektor
Well, this was my first experience in organizing something like this. I think that the meeting ran quite smoothly. Although the accommodation was a bit austere, the meeting room was just large enough for 40 people and very comfortable. There was a very lively atmosphere there in the evening.
What I regret is the final session over PragTic itself. I had not enough experience to expect that it is so hard to keep the line and try to explain some movements of mouse to nearly 40 people. Moreover, I induced some error in the source code of PragTic just before burning the final CD-ROM for participants, when I tried to suppress another error.
Since I am now the only developer of PragTic I cannot imagine any better solution. Maybe the only possibility is to present the meeting as some presentation of PragTic's features and not the training. It is impossible in such a huge group of people.
The 2nd PragTic Users' Meeting
Jan Papuga, ÈVUT v Praze & Evektor
I have been positively surprised by the fact, that the interest in this type of a meeting increased (55 participants). Nevertheless we are still limited to our region only, and thus there were only 3 invited presenters of commercial fatigue programs from abroad and no other foreign participant.
Due to my previous experience from the 1st PUM I asked the foreign participants if we could switch the conference language to the Czech, while they will see the English slides, what they kindly accepted. I thank all of them for their kindness as regards this problem. I myself have to analyse how the part with the presentations of commercial solvers has to be evaluated. I wanted to provide the best possible informations to all the interested persons about everything what can be found on this topic. I am nevertheless not sure, if the link to the technical lectures was adequate.
The hotel as regards the accommodation and meals was fine, but we had great problems with the acoustics of the hall. We were the first meeting held there after the renovation what negatively affected its quality. If this problem is not solved up to the next meeting (but I have heard that it would), we have to look for some other place. Anyway, both the social evenings were very pleasant and the atmosphere of the old stable was really great.
The present limited response of the users made me to a try to establish an annually set "PragTic in Use" prize, which would motivate young users to more substantial and public use of the PragTic solver, so that I have got an adequate feedback. It seems now, that I will be quite successful in this my effort so you will surely hear about this my activivity in the News section.
We have repeatedly reflected with Milan Ruzicka, how much was the increase in the workshop's length concerning quite basic information on fatigue analysis positive. Our up-to-date conclusion is now, that the best solution is to leave the basic problematics for separate lectures or workshops and concentrate on other topics, which has not been adequately reported yet. Hopefully, you will hear more on cyclic plasticity, contact problems, welds or something else in the next year. Any your ideas are welcomed.
