Installing and Updating Programs from Source

[Matthew Crews]

Hey all, this is a relatively newbish question.

I'm comfortable with downloading and installing the source code to a program that I want to use, compile it, and use "make install" to install. That is the easy part.

Here's the hard part for me. What are the best practices for doing so?
-Is there a specific subfolder I should be installing compiled programs to? IE /opt instead of /usr/bin ?
-Is there a way to specify the subfolder?
-Is there an easy way to uninstall said programs when I am ready to do so?
-What is the best way to keep said programs up to date when a new version is available?

For the record, I am using Debian Stretch. Would it be better to take a program I want and make a .deb so that I can use dpkg or apt?

Cheers.

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