On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Bruce ONeel wrote:

> Happy to do this.  I could easily do:
> Smalltalk/Squeak/3.6gamma/current.zip
> or I could have some directory
> Smalltalk/Squeak/current_gamma/current.zip
> Or
> Smalltalk/Squeak/testpilot/current_gamma.zip
> What's easiest (and least confusing to the person who stumbles upon it)?

My own feeling is that there are only two approaches which are not
confusing for people (which I guess really means "for me"):

  - If you have each release in seperate subdir "X.Y.Z/...zip" then
    create a symbolic link to the release dir called "current".
    Following the link dumps you in a directory where the version
    numbers are explicit in the filenames.

      Foo-X.Y.Zgamma/foo-x.y.z-gamma.zip
      Foo-gamma-current -> Foo-X.Y.Zgamma

  - If you have multiple releases in the same [sub]dir then the only
    safe thing to do is to create a file called something like

      LATEST_GAMMA_IS_X.Y.Z

    (which, if you like, could be a symlink to the archive itself).

The rationale behind all of the above is that one should never, ever
become confused as to which version number in the explicitly-numbered
archives corresponds to the "current" release.  Making "opaque" archives
(or symlinks) that just say "current.zip" destroys exactly this kind of
essential information.

Just my HO.
Cheers,
Ian