Latest minor versions

[Zverik]

(moving discussion from #235)

It would be nice to have version-dependent latest. There are two ways this can be done (examples from that wiki page):

//cdn.jsdelivr.net/abaaso/latest/3.8/abaaso.js

Loads version 3.8.16 if it is the latest version in 3.8 branch. /latest/3/abaaso.js will return the latest version in 3 branch: e.g. 3.11.5.

//cdn.jsdelivr.net/abaaso/3.8/abaaso.js

This will load version 3.8 if there is a directory for it, or the latest version in 3.8 branch (3.8.16) it there isn't. There might be a problem if author doesn't keep version format consistent.

@jimaek: I want to make the URLs more dynamic but my problem is reliability. With static files I know 100% the user will get the contents of the file. But for example if I create a PHP script to handle different parameters like the versions you said then a lot of new points of failure are added. script code, php-fpm, MySQL, server load...

Well, latest versions are surely not generated by a PHP script, but probably just copied to some location. The same algorithm can be applied to sub-latest versions (1, 1.0, 1.1, 2, 2.0 etc). Hardlinks can remove any disk space overhead.

As for one-week update delay, this is a problem. And I don't know how it can be solved — except for keeping a separate "routing" server, which receives a request for a sub-latest version, and routes to the correct file. But it will be a SPF, which is bad. Still, it is a task worth thinking about. It will also allow for faster latest.

[jimaek]

I guess I can lower the caching time for latest. For example from 7 to 3 days. What do you think?

Currently I am trying to do these minor versions you asked. I will let you know how it goes.

Btw you can also read this article to understand better how jsDelivr works

[jimaek]

Done! Check it out

http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/abaaso/3.8/abaaso.js = 3.8.16

[Zverik]

Magical! How did you do it? Like latest, with three-day latency?

[jimaek]

For now I didn't change the caching times. What do you think its the best number?

[Zverik]

Well, I can't decide on it, since I don't know the algoritm for pushing it to CDNs, but from a dev's point of view it should be a day, maybe two. Only because after releasing a version a developer wants it to be available as early as possible :)

Three days are good enough, I think. Though forbids quick patches. A week feels a bit too long.

[jimaek]

I am going to leave it 7 days for now. Will see how it goes and if needed I change it.