[Python-Dev] www.python.org/doc and docs.python.org hotfixed

[Nick Coghlan]

Thomas Wouters wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 15:51, <skip at pobox.com <mailto:skip at pobox.com>>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>        Nick> The old doc directories are already kept around (all the
>     way back
>        Nick> to 1.4 in fact: http://www.python.org/doc/1.4/)
> 
>        Nick> As a quick fix for the old links, a rewrite rule to map
>     such links
>        Nick> to the 2.5 docs seems like a very good idea to me. Since
>     old URLs
>        Nick> all use abbreviations in the directory name (tut, lib, mac,
>     ref,
>        Nick> ext, api, doc, inst, dist), it should be straightforward to
>        Nick> redirect them without affecting the links to the new docs
>        Nick> (tutorial, using, reference, howto, extending, c-api, install,
>        Nick> distutils, documenting).
> 
>     Yes, we should probably still get the top-level links redirected to
>     the new
>     docs though.  The 2.5 tutorial is probably going to get stale over time
>     while the 2.6 version will be updated at least until 2.7 is released.
> 
> 
> After discussing on #python-dev (briefly), I made the toplevel
> directories refer to the new, 2.6 toplevel directories, but deeper URLs
> in the old directories redirect to www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/
> <http://www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/>. I still think this is the wrong
> approach, especially in the long term: it means people who just follow
> old documentation links will not see the new results, and search engines
> will not realize the pages are effectively stale.

Agreed, but I think it's a better near-term solution than dumping deep
links back at the top of the relevant document (it always annoys me when
web sites do that).

Long term, remapping even the deep links to the appropriate part of the
new docs should hopefully be possible.

For the search engine issue, is there any way we can tell robots to
ignore the rewrite rules so they see the broken links? (although even
that may not be ideal, since what we really want is to tell the robot
the link is broken, and provide the new alternative)

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
---------------------------------------------------------------
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