As discussed in the IRC channel, the biggest reason for this is caching. Namely, the Libraries API (aka, Google CDN) exists to improve performance by allowing clients to cache resources across sites and such. To that end, they set a far-distant future expires header, which tells the browser that it shouldn't worry about checking back for updated versions of the resource. So it doesn't. By changing the URL with every version, the browser is compelled to get the new version.
A secondary reason for this has to do with compatibility. More specifically, if a page is using a resource from a common alias (e.g., /latest/), and the latest version is updated to a version that breaks functionality on which the page relied, the whole page could be broken as a result. Although this is generally not a huge issue between minor versions of a library, it can be a major problem between major versions. It is therefore preferable to require the developer to perform the update once they've confirmed that their code will work with the new version of all relevant libraries. So there are two reasons why Google doesn't do that. jg On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 9:49 AM, fv <[email protected]> wrote: > It would make changes immediate by letting us link to a /latest/ > directory, rather than a /1.7.etc etc/ directory and allow us to not have > to focus on version changes as much. > > As an example, jQuery maintains this link: > http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js allowing users to point to that > rather than /jquery-1.8.2.js or whatever. > > Any suggestions? I'd love to point to Google APIs rather than jQuery, but > i don't want to have to focus on version updates. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > To view this message on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-ajax-search-api/-/8gXAaqJ-JngJ > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en > -- Jeremy R. Geerdes Generally Cool Guy Des Moines, IA If you're in the Des Moines, IA, area, check out Debra Heights Wesleyan Church! http://www.debraheightswesleyan.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google AJAX APIs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] To view this message on the web, visit http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en_US For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api?hl=en?hl=en
