[Bioc-devel] Short URLs for packages?

[Robert Castelo]

hi Dan,

one question about this, just to know whether this is intentional or 
should be fixed. i have noticed that these short URLs:

www.bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics

or

bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics

resolve to

http://master.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BiocGenerics.html

while the page is correct, should not they be resolving to an URL 
starting with 'www' instead of 'master'? i.e.,

www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BiocGenerics.html


this is really minor, but i think it may create confusion when one sees 
the same page starting with 'www' or 'master'.


cheers,

robert.

On 04/28/2015 08:08 PM, Dan Tenenbaum wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Wolfgang Huber"<whuber at embl.de> To:
>> bioc-devel at r-project.org Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 3:17:03 AM
>> Subject: [Bioc-devel] Short URLs for packages?
>>
>> I wonder whether it’d possible to have the website understand URLs
>> like http://www.bioconductor.org/<pkgname>
>>
>> This could resolve to
>> http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/<pkgname>.html
>>
>>
or
>> http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/devel/bioc/html/<pkgname>.html
>>
>>
depending on whether the package was yet released.
>>
>> This could be handy in papers or grants that mention packages.
>>
>
> We came up with something close to this, but it does include the
> /packages/ segment because we think that's important.
>
>
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics/
>
> - takes you to the release landing page, unless the package is only
> in devel, in which case it takes you to the devel landing page (which
> will contain suitable warnings/instructions about installing the
> devel version).
>
> You can also specify 'devel' or 'release' or a numbered Bioconductor
> version:
>
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/devel/BiocGenerics/
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/BiocGenerics/
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.2/BiocGenerics/
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.1/BiocGenerics/
> http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.0/BiocGenerics/ ...
>
> (The trailing slashes are optional in all of these).
>
> These are redirects and not forwards; that is, if you enter one of
> these short URLs, it won't remain in your browser's address bar but
> will change to one of the longer URLs. So they are sort of ephemeral
> in this way.
>
> We looked into doing these as forwards (i.e., short URL remains in
> address bar, but content from 'long' URL is served), which seems more
> useful, but there were too many problems with that; it breaks
> relative URLs and more importantly it breaks our mirrors which do not
> necessarily have the same content root as our web site.
>
> At any rate, the short URLs can be used in publications and other
> sites, and they are useful as a permanent link to the current release
> version of a package. We have added information about these short
> URLs to the emails we send to new package developers, so that they
> can use them in publications that reference their packages.
>
> Thanks, Dan
>
>
>
>
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>
>> ---- Wolfgang Huber Principal Investigator, EMBL Senior Scientist
>> Genome Biology Unit European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
>> Heidelberg, Germany
>>
>> T +49-6221-3878823 wolfgang.huber at embl.de http://www.huber.embl.de
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bioc-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bioc-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel

-- 
Robert Castelo, PhD
Associate Professor
Dept. of Experimental and Health Sciences
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB)
Dr Aiguader 88
E-08003 Barcelona, Spain
telf: +34.933.160.514
fax: +34.933.160.550