Naming for Versioning
Most of us have learned that writing goes through many revisions before it sees the light of day. But the same thing is true for illustrations, photo manipulations, designs, sound files, etc. File-naming can be a powerful tool to track the progress of a file (and revert to a version as it existed before something got screwed up).
Remember the leading-zero issue from the list of conservative basic rules? It's possible to used serialized file names to track the drafts of a project: files 001 thru 0xx might be used to enumerate versions of the rough draft; 101 thru 1xx are track revisions of first drafts; 201 thru 2xx track second drafts or perhaps a dramatic departure of some kind from the first version. So after awhile, one might create file list that looks like this:
site-design-001.jpg site-design-002.jpg site-design-003.jpg site-design-101.jpg site-design-102.jpg site-design-201.jpg
This kind of versioning system also prevents older versions from being overwritten. Of course, when the file is actually presented to the intended client or audience, the enumerated file, like site-design-201.jpg, keeps everyone on the same page in terms of versioning. A final version might also be named as site-design-final.jpg. You get the idea.
One of the better reasons for saving versions of a file, though, is to protect yourself against intellectual property theft or accusations of plagiarism. If you've got all of your old versions laying around, it'd be pretty hard for someone to say the work isn't yours.
Again, there's no right way to do this; you have to figure out a system that works for you and your project team, if you're working collaboratively.
Updated on Sun. Aug. 26 2007 at 05:23PM