Re: FTP and file transfers

Joe Touch <touch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Wed, 4 Oct 2017 06:05:47 -0700



    On 9/29/2017 7:48 AM, Phillip
      Hallam-Baker wrote:

    
      How strange, I
        have always found FTP to be an absolute dog of a protocol
        precisely because it mandates idiot defaults and implementations
        are required to perform heuristic hacks. I always used to have
        to transmit files twice because the first time the transfer
        would be corrupted by the default being 'trash my data in case I
        am using an IBM machine'.
      

      The separation
        of the command and data is a good one but separating it over
        separate TCP/IP streams is an utter disaster for reliability.
        None of the FTPS clients I have found for Windows is able to
        reliably transmit a Web site update.
    
    
    HTTP ignored this at their own peril, and ended up creating its own
    multiplexing layer to avoid HOL blocking and support signalling and
    reinventing parts of FTP poorly, IMO.

    
    Faults in the implementation of Windows software are far too easy to
    find to blame them on the protocol itself.

    
    Joe