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As a teen I had this idea to make a polyglot server that makes the same data accessible over different protocols, and I tried to be creative. I had FTP working

As a teen I had this idea to make a polyglot server that makes the same data accessible over different protocols, and I tried to be creative. I had FTP working fully, HTTP mostly, IMAP to an extend, and a very rough IRC prototype before I lost interest. This was vb6 in the late 90s iirc, so no protocol libraries and a rather limited language when it comes to parsing and string handling. All these protocols were made to give you a view on a simple directory tree with files in it. FTP was obvious as that's just what the protocol is for. For HTTP it felt a bit like cheating since I had to create directory listings in HTML which didn't feel pure. Also it only had read access. Same for IMAP. It worked well as you could map directories onto folders and the file content was the mail body. IRC was where it got weird; with channels you only got one level of directories, the files were users on those channels that you could say something to on the channel, and they'd DCC you the file contents. It crashed some clients though when the filenames were too long... Some database protocol would've been interesting too I guess. Also, the server listened on one port only and looked at the incoming data to determine the protocol, which I also thought back then was pretty 1337.

codetrotter 4y ago
> For HTTP it felt a bit like cheating since I had to create directory listings in HTML which didn't feel pure. Also it only had read access. There’s also WebDAV, which may be interesting to implement. Although, I am not aware of any actually great WebDAV clients. Only time I ever used WebDAV was a decade ago on my first smartphone, when I set up a WebDAV server on my computer and used a WebDAV client app on the phone to transfer files between the phone and the computer over WiFi. WebDAV is one of those things where because I personally haven’t used it for so long it could be something that “no one” uses anymore in present day, or it could be that unbeknownst to me it’s hugely popular.
- mattcurious 4y ago
  [dead]
- amluto 4y ago
  > For HTTP it felt a bit like cheating since I had to create directory listings in HTML which didn't feel pure. FTP’s directory listings are essentially ASCII art, which is IMO just as bad, except that the conventions involved were developed enough that machine parsing them mostly worked. At least HTML has the a tag, which is genuinely machine parseable.
- nijave 4y ago
  A long time ago I used the built-in Windows support for WebDAV and it seemed to work fine. I think Microsoft Sharepoint uses WebDAV. I think nextcloud supports WebDAV although I haven't used that in years either
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  WebDAV is still used for cloud storage (e.g. https://www.transip.nl/stack/ https://www.transip.nl/stack/). You can do offsite backups this way (if you’re not using rsync- or S3-compatible storage). CalDAV and CardDAV (which are based on WebDAV) are of course also still around and used to sync contacts and calendars.

codetrotter 4y ago

> For HTTP it felt a bit like cheating since I had to create directory listings in HTML which didn't feel pure. Also it only had read access. There’s also WebDAV, which may be interesting to implement. Although, I am not aware of any actually great WebDAV clients. Only time I ever used WebDAV was a decade ago on my first smartphone, when I set up a WebDAV server on my computer and used a WebDAV client app on the phone to transfer files between the phone and the computer over WiFi. WebDAV is one of those things where because I personally haven’t used it for so long it could be something that “no one” uses anymore in present day, or it could be that unbeknownst to me it’s hugely popular.

mattcurious 4y ago
[dead]
amluto 4y ago
> For HTTP it felt a bit like cheating since I had to create directory listings in HTML which didn't feel pure. FTP’s directory listings are essentially ASCII art, which is IMO just as bad, except that the conventions involved were developed enough that machine parsing them mostly worked. At least HTML has the a tag, which is genuinely machine parseable.
nijave 4y ago
A long time ago I used the built-in Windows support for WebDAV and it seemed to work fine. I think Microsoft Sharepoint uses WebDAV. I think nextcloud supports WebDAV although I haven't used that in years either
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
WebDAV is still used for cloud storage (e.g. https://www.transip.nl/stack/ https://www.transip.nl/stack/). You can do offsite backups this way (if you’re not using rsync- or S3-compatible storage). CalDAV and CardDAV (which are based on WebDAV) are of course also still around and used to sync contacts and calendars.