[geeks] RANT (ftp)

[Michael Parson]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 11:05:09AM -0400, kevin marshall wrote:
> What the hell happened to FTP? Half the corporate FTP sites
> (Apple being the latest) i go to these days no longer have files,
> but instead have a text file that says to get the sh*t from some
> damn web page. What the hell was wrong with FTP?

I miss ftp too, but it was designed back when security wasn't as big
a problem.  I'm not saying ftp is inherently insecure, but it has
caused enough headaches with people getting it to work properly through
firewalls, etc, that it just becomes easier to shut it off and move
files over http.

Now if they would just let me grab a simple URL with wget, I wouldn't
mind so much, but having to jump through the stupid hoops you have to
in order to get something off a site like sourceforge is just a fscking
PITA.  I large portion of the time the box I am browsing on is NOT the
box that needs the software I'm looking for and having to interupt their
stupid auto-transfer and then selecting the URL is just annoying.

> Computers were great until people started using them, damn i miss
> the internet circa 1995.

As long as we're pining for the glory days, I miss the times before
Sept 1993.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org