managing releases of web applications: is svn checkout the best way?

[Ksenia]

Hi,

For website development, I am using SVN repository to commit the code
from my development computer, and on the production server use svn
checkout to update the code to the latest version.
Is this the most common approach people using? Or is there maybe a
better way to manage "live" releases, like creating an egg for each
release? Assuming the code is closed-source and should be kept secure.

Just wondering how you people deal with that.
Thanks
Ksenia