[squeak-dev] suggestions for ftp.squeak.org directory structure
reorganization
Ken G. Brown
kbrown at mac.com
Fri Apr 11 14:51:57 UTC 2008
It has always seemed to me that the ftp site directory organization has been a bit messy and is hard to figure out what's where.
It has grown in an ad-hoc way without enough design forethought. With some discussion, we should be able to come up with a much improved design for moving into the future.
eg. look at the whole ftp directory, you see 'current_stable', 'current_development'(are these the same files as in the numbered directories?), 'VM_Sources' (but only for Win here), 'versions' (but its empty), 'updates' (but who knows what that is?), etc. etc. A new person would go looking in 'updates' no doubt, for updates of course, and there's no readme telling how to use it. '3.9 beta' has a final in there, but final isn't really final since '3.9' has a 3.9 final and also a 3.91 final, and isn't '3.9.1' a descendent of '3.9'? The 'various_images' directory looks to have up-to-date stuff but you get no idea idea how it fits in from looking at it. It has FunSqueak which has a couple versions of 3.10 full but is nowhere to be found from the 3.10 branch. And there's more issues, but I won't bore you further.
I feel someone new (or anyone really) should be able to come in at the top level and drill down to what they are looking for easily, each level can have a readme directory if needed that shows first in the list, for a place to put docs explaining what the directory is for if it isn't self explanatory, or other miscellaneous useful info.
Looking at all the directories at each level can give progressively detailed view. Think starting with the universe and progressively stripping away irrelevancies as you drill down.
I'm not saying I have it exactly right in my first try here, but I am just throwing it out for discussion. There should be consistency throughout as well, so the structure is easy to figure out and it is obvious where new items should go and how they should be named. Symlinks should be used where needed and named obviously so that the items are only stored once. Symlinks could be used for the 'QuickStart' all-in-one downloads.
I started more or less from the svn source directory structure so this would be comparable.
If the directory structure is redesigned with a little more generality and thought, it will be easy to navigate, and be obvious where to look for stuff, and where and how to insert new items.
And the naming conventions for versioning need to have more consistency and thought given as well.
Comments?
Ken G. Brown
Example suggested directory structure, incomplete:
Squeak
<ReadMe
ReadMeA.txt
ReadMeB.txt
Licence
ReadMe.txt
Licence.txt
QuickStart
<Readme
fullPackagesLatest
Win
Mac
Linux/Unix
Sources
<ReadMe
ReadMeA.txt
forSqueak 1.0-1.x
SqueakV1.sources
forSqueak 2.0-2.x
SqueakV2.sources
forSqueak 3.0-3.8
SqueakV3.sources
forSqueak 3.9-3.10
SqueakV39.sources
Images
<ReadMe
versions
3.9
basic
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
dev
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
web
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
full/fun
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
3.10
basic
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
dev
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
web
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
full/fun
alpha
beta
gamma
releaseCandidate1
release1
3.11
versions
etc.
OLPC
versions
etc.
Spoon (not sure exactly where this should go in the overall structure)
<ReadMe
versions
etc.
VM's
<ReadMe
Platforms
<ReadMe
Mac OS
OS 8 - 9
versions
OS X
versions
HydraVM
Windows
Vista
versions
XP
versions
HydraVM
Dos
Subtype
versions
OLPC
Subtype
versions
QNX
Subtype
versions
s
RiscOS
RiscType
versions
unix/Linux
debian
versions
Ubuntu
versions
RedHat
versions
SmallSqueaksForPDAs/
NOKIA
Subtype
versions
WIN-CE
Subtype
versions
etc.
OtherSqueakStuff
<ReadMe
alice
Exupery
Experiments
etc.
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