Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!decwrl!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Comm Toolbox: Hypothetical questions
Message-ID: <9388@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 24 Dec 89 01:40:14 GMT
References: <10478@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 34

In article <10478@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu
(Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
>    Has anyone considered that maybe FTP is not a very good file tranfer
>    protocol?  If it is so much trouble to implenent (hypothetically -- I
>    don't have the slightest idea), maybe you are looking in the wrong place
>    for the problem.

FTP is the best LAN/WAN file transfer protocol that I know of short of
transparent file service.  It is far better than most modem-based
protocols, because it includes features like directory browsing,
remote removal, remote renaming, and so forth.  It's also pretty easy
to implement if you already have a TCP available.

What's hard to implement is FTP-under-Comm-Toolbox, a different kettle
of fish.  This is difficult, not because there's anything wrong with
FTP, but because the Toolbox wasn't designed with TCP/IP in mind.

However, you should be aware that even if FTP were the worst transfer
protocol in the world (crowding out XMODEM), it wouldn't matter.  There
are tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of TCP/IP
computers out there which are hooked into long-established networks
using it.  Apple has no power and no business saying that each of these
computers, running various different operating systems, should throw
away their existing protocol software and write new software that's
more compatible with a minor product they're bringing out.
Fortunately, Apple would hardly do such a silly thing.  At least
overtly....
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"Someone to flame us, someone to follow,
 Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo!
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