Re: [tlug] ftp client for linux

[Brian Chandler <brian@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Brian Chandler writes:
>
>  > how to get an ftp client running. The next thing is a programming 
>  > editor: how should I _start_ this task?
>
> Emacs.  Finish with Emacs too.  And get an LCD ftp client, and then
> hide it behind XEmacs/EFS or GNU Emacs/angeftp.
>
>  > I'm trying to use SSH,
>
> Just use OpenSSL, and hide that behind Emacs/TRAMP.
>
> Emacs is NOT for everyone, but it IS for everything. ;-)

Thanks for the replies. Yours is one perspective, and since someone 
asked if I was happy with the command line, so here's another perspective.

I was happy with the command line in 1989, despite having also used Sun 
and Perq workstations with windowed operating systems, particularly for 
essentially graphical tasks. But then I started using the Norton 
Commander in 1990... (and a few years later a little utility from Thomas 
someone called lcd, that does a remote cd to the best guess in the tree, 
or did, until Japanese filenames came along and broke it). Those were 
the two biggest improvements in productivity that I can think of over 
the last 20 years, other than the Web. Emacs and I met in the 80s, but 
we didn't really get on.

If you are editing a single file sending the new version, testing, loop 
until coffeetime, then command line ftp is fine, but I often want to 
update chunks of image files and so on; I also make mistakes, not being 
a lawyer, so I want to be able to see the directories I'm transferring 
things from and to. I don't see that the basic two-panel file listing 
format can be beaten (and I'm astonished that so many people seem to 
accept this business of arranging two windows so you can pull things 
from one to another as normal - it strikes me as crazy. But then, I make 
mistakes, and I find I drop things where I didn't mean to, and can't 
find them. So I'm not very enamoured of "mousing around" either.)

Does anyone use Midnight Commander??

Can anyone explain: is there a fundamental reason why ftp clients are so 
wobbly? I mean, I found this comment too, on the Ubuntu forums:

nautilus FTP thingie is borked. It messes up everytime here.
Go Go gFTP ;)

So what to make of it??

Brian Chandler
(where's my signature then?)