Re: [xml] Windows Binaries And The Web

[Igor Zlatkovic <igor zlatkovic com>]

Adam Maccabee Trachtenberg wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Igor Zlatkovic wrote:
>
>
> > Both links refer to the same storage. Should I keep moving everything
> > but the newest stuff into the 'oldreleases' subdirectory, or should I
> > rather keep everything right there where it was released? Or would it be
> > best to even separate the packages in /pub/libxml, /pub/libxslt,
> > /pub/iconv and so on? Or any combination thereof? What do you think?
>
>
> I frequently see people create a foo-latest.win32.zip file that's a
> symlink to the most recent version (for example, foo-1.9.1.win32.zip).
>
> This allows other sites to provide their users with a non-breaking
> link to the latest version without needing to update their sites every
> time a new version comes out.
>
> At the same time, you can move around files without worrying about
> these types of issues because you're only committing to having the
> generic symlink stay in the same place.

Oh, Adam, I would love the symlink, it would solve few other problems I 
have in addition to this one. But the whole website is a web 
application, served by a servlet container, currently Apache Tomcat. The 
thing is, servlet's platform, Java, has no notion of a symbolic link 
because it isn't supported on all systems it runs on. I would like to 
keep it open. The site should still work if the operating system changes 
underneath. Currently it runs on Linux and a symlink would work, but I 
cannot guarantee that will remain that way. For example, should I one 
day come across a Windows server with better finance-service ratio, I'll 
run Tomcat there just the same. This is why a symlink is not an option.

> BTW, if you go that route or make any other change, I can update the
> PHP Manual to point at the new place for iconv and other files that
> you're hosting. Let me know what you decide.

Okay. Whatever I decide I shall post here. In every case I'll strive 
towards stable links which don't change with every update of the packages.

Ciao,
Igor