13 Mar
2007
13 Mar
'07
7:41 a.m.
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