ftp archives disappearing?

[Jules Richardson]

Adam Goldman wrote:
> The Internet used to have a number of useful features that it no longer
> does today -- for example, the finger and talk protocols. These protocols
> no longer exist on the Internet, mostly due to valid security reasons.

It was OK until they let the idiots in ;)

> On the other hand: HTTP actually isn't that bad as a replacement for FTP,
> except that uploads are much harder. There's also the problem of machine
> parsing the directory listings, but FTP had that problem too, to some extent.

It's a shame that there wasn't a widely-adopted data transfer protocol that 
was truly bi-directional. Both FTP and HTTP largely revolve around moving data 
in one direction only. Even given the predominant client/server model of the 
time, it's a shame that the "main" protocols weren't designed with the 
foresight that one day we might want to move just as much stuff *to* a site as 
we were taking *from* it.

> And the network itself is much faster and more reliable than it used to be.

Indeed. I was almost about to disagree, but I think it's just that people 
accepted the glitches more back in the "old days", so we hear more complaints 
now when something does break even though it's actually better than it was.

cheers

Jules