[WEB4LIB] web publishing process

[sean dreilinger]

David Vose wrote:
> THE QUESTION: In this split environment, what is the best way to get new
> or updated pages from the staff pcs to the unix web server. One
...
> I'd be interested in hearing how others that work in a split environment
> like this publish their pages.

you might consider placing the web development and maintenance under
version control, which can be used to automate the file schlepping,
cross-platform issues (e.g. line endings), prevent or resolve minor
editing conflicts, and separate the content development (page authoring)
from the hosting and server administration.

for my work at interactivate consulting group
(http://interactivate.com/) we used a freely available version control
system called CVS (concurrent versions system) to manage distributed web
development on some very large (5,000 document) web sites, with authors
working in their choice of authorware and platform (mac, win32, unix)
safely and reliably checking in content at all hours from seriously
remote locations (romania to california, anyone?). 

CVS is good stuff, i highly recommend it if you have more than a few
content contributors, need site staging, multiple site variations or
templated web sites, the ability to roll back sites and view them as
they appeared on any day in the past, etc. the play-by-play on using CVS
and setting it up for web development is online here: 

	http://durak.org/cvswebsites/

if you have resources to experiment with more cutting-edge tools, there
is a spec called WebDAV (web distributed authoring and versioning) that
is just starting to appear in some demonstration tools, i think the
w3.org hosts the development channel for WebDAV. it looks well-suited to
small development groups, you may still prefer cvs if your project is
large (authors or # of files).

HTH!
--
                          sean dreilinger, mlis
                          mailto:sean at durak.org
                          http://durak.org/sean