On Wednesday, August 03, 2011 08:30:02 AM Brian Mathis wrote:
Wait - isn't that an alternative technology?!?
No it's not, and you're making a stupid argument. Clearly there is a difference between using a different client versus changing the entire protocol stack across all systems it's being used for. Using a better client mechanism involves maybe an hour or so worth of work, while changing the entire protocol you're using requires changing every service on every server in every company you might be interfacing with. One of those is easy to do, the other one is likely impossible.
As you make the point later, perl is a different technology than /usr/bin/ftp. Both can use the same protocol.
I find it strange and annoying that so many times the answers to questions like the OP's so often and so clearly miss the mark, as if no one here understands what's actually involved in implementing a new protocol stack across an enterprise or between enterprises.
We're all doing some different, you know? Some of us have to deal with arcane "requirements" written by some midlevel bureaucrat. I prefer using sftp, scp, or post/https for secure file transfers. More than once I've been forced to use FTP for "security reasons", even after I try to explain otherwise.
The questionable thing is not using entrenched protocols, but using old methods like redirecting ftp commands via STDIN into a client to control it.
/bin/sh is an "old method". TCP is pretty ancient, as well. For that matter, UNIX is REALLY ancient. Yet somehow, they are not only still useful, but highly relevant. Wheels are also old technology!
See above, re: stupid argument. If your objection is to the use of the word "old" as opposed to something like "error prone", please perform 's/old/error prone/g' in your head and save us the pixels. P.S. Something becomes "old" when it's been replaced by a newer, better way of doing things, not simply because of age.
I see this nowhere in the standard definition for "old". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/old
Redirecting commands into an ftp client (and, btw, I don't know if the OP is doing this, but it's still amazingly common) is a provably bad "old" method of doing things. You cannot deal with error conditions or anything else that might come up. Using a scripting language/library allows you to deal with these obvious problems.
You might consider becoming familiar with expect, perhaps? # yum install expect;
I've been around the block long enough to know that those who are most certain they have the right answer right away are usually those least likely to have it. Science backs this conclusion up, it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Strange: no comment here?