[CentOS] Two ftp clients? Why?

[Les Mikesell]

On 8/2/2011 6:06 PM, Brian Mathis wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Les Mikesell<lesmikesell at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> No, its 'how can I repeat old mistakes' instead of learning from them or
>> building on them.
>>
>> But back to the original problem, why would anyone use ftp in this
>> century when rsync or http(s) are so much easier to manage?
>>
>>    Les Mikesell
>
>
> While I understand the sentiment of "why use old stuff", this is still
> a pretty ridiculous statement.  It takes not even 10 seconds to think
> of situations where one would need to, such as interfacing with
> *paying* clients, etc...

Yes, if you don't control both ends or you are talking to an embedded 
device that can't do anything better...


> Instead of suggesting alternate technologies, it should be suggested
> to not use an ftp client at all and instead use a scripting language,
> such as perl or python, that has libraries meant for talking to these
> protocols.  Their man pages pretty much show you how even if you don't
> know the language.
>
> The questionable thing is not using entrenched protocols, but using
> old methods like redirecting ftp commands via STDIN into a client to
> control it.

There are reasonable clients for automating ftp (curl, wget, ncftp, 
lftp, etc.). But they can't match rsync for most things if the goal is 
to move files around, update them in place, etc.  And if you have to 
traverse firewalls, ftp is about the worst possible protocol to use.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com