Re: [boost] boost and google search

Subject: Re: [boost] boost and google search
From: Philippe Vaucher (philippe.vaucher_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-11-30 09:51:16

>
> I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
> question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise
> the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed
> behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
>

While I agree with that,  what constantly happens to me is this:

I search for something, say "boost foreach". I click the outdated (say
1.35) link. I edit the url to replace 35 by 48 and finally I can see my
doc. Sometimes the doc changed and now the url with 1.48 is a 404. So I
curse and remove the library page part from the url and finally get my doc.

I know that I'm probably supposed to click the links on boost.org's
documentation section to reach the latest doc in the first place to avoid
myself that tedious dance I just described, but I think I'm far from the
only one searching the docs using google.

I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest
on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc
for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's
the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid,
and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just
redirect to the lib's index.

Philippe