It was in the dark ages of the Reagan era when I logged my first encounter with the File Transfer Protocol. I was involved in some nefarious video game-trading ring of the innocently naive variety, and a friend of mine had that hot new copy of Vladivostok Putting Challenge that I wanted oh so badly. The only problem was that he lived all the way on the other side of Orange County. Being too young to drive, neither of us had access to a car, and snail mail was just too darned slow. I wanted to lay down sloping fifteen-footers and rub it in the face of the Reds today, not in a week. "No problem," my friend assured me. "Just log in to my server and grab it with FTP."
"FTP? What is that?" I asked. My friend let out an Oscar-worthy sigh and gave me the quick run down of the Internet protocol that would forever transform my life.
Last I heard, my friend is collecting Galaxie 500s in Michigan, so calling him up with your FTP questions isn't really an option anymore. Lucky for you, I'm here to give you a holier-than-thou sigh of my own and send you down the dharma path.
For those of you who are entirely new to this whole game, we'll start with a basic primer on the most comely of acronyms. FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol. A protocol is a set of rules that networked computers use to talk to one another. And FTP is the language that computers on a TCP/IP network (such as the Internet) use to transfer files to and from each other.
You've probably encountered FTP out there on the Net already. Ever downloaded a fresh nightly build of Mozilla or grabbed MP3s from some kid's server in Sweden? Then you have probably used FTP without even knowing it. Today's Web browsers allow you to download files via FTP from within the browser window. It's very convenient, and it's great for those times you need to download a file or two, but the browser-download method does not offer much in the realm of flexibility. You can't upload, force a particular transfer mode, or ask the server any questions. And don't even get me started on the security issue. But if you are doing any sort of Web development, you need all this functionality.
The best way to pursue file transfers is with a bona fide FTP client. You use an FTP client to log into an FTP server, navigate the server's folder structure, and exchange files. That's pretty much all FTP clients do — unlike Web browsers, FTP clients are tailor-made for such duties. The latest full-featured Web editors like Dreamweaver MX and GoLive 6 have FTP fuctions built-in. As far as stand-alone FTP clients go, there are literally hundreds out there. Some are free, some are more expensive than a night on the town.
We'll take an in-depth look at the joy of using an FTP client in the pages that follow, but first, let's look at exactly how an FTP session works.
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