> 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

> 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.