Synchronising downloads and updates
Apparently my boss used to be annoyed with something on his old website. When he wanted to upload an updated binary he often couldn't because his product was so popular that someone was always downloading it at the same time. He'd have to continuously hit Delete in his FTP client until eventually he'd slip in and manage to delete it before updating the new version. This obviously isn't an ideal solution because: He constantly had to sit there for around an hour trying to delete it. Once deleted from the disk any user attempting to download would get a 404 – Not Found error. During upload any user attempting to download would get an Access Denied error of some kind. For this website I have decided first of all to only update the files via a HTTP form post. So firstly any long running upload will not deny access to the currently available file, this eliminates problem 3. Additionally, using a form post means I can overwrite the existing file, so this eliminates problem 2.