Sannyasin Brahmanathaswami wrote:

> But when I saw recently that something we've been begging for, for
> 15 years… simple SFTP functionality from the engine..

Writing the word "simple" doesn't make it so. :)

Yes, many programs offer it. But none of them also provide a generalized scripting language with integrated GUI controls suitable for crafting a vast range of apps across seven platforms.

If LC was only an SFTP client it might be simple. But we also ask them to do a lot more, a thousand things no one asks of any SFTP client.

Moreover, because there are so very many capable SFTP clients, why does the world need one more?

Once upon a time a lot of people thought they wanted SFTP in LiveCode. Some still do. But most of them would rather have the other things the team is also building, and along the way it seems many have lost sight of why they thought they wanted it in the first place.

There are three common scenarios for uploading files to servers:

a) Non-admins submitting content to the site.
   This is commonly handled via HTTP APIs, which is both more
   efficient and far more secure.  Why give unbridled access
   to the entire site just to upload a file?  HTTP is the tool
   for that job.

b) Admins doing general administrative tasks.
   Most tasks are done faster in shell, but once in a while a
   general-purpose SFTP client can be useful.  And when it is,
   there are dozens of free ones for every platform to choose
   from.

c) Admins seeking to automate file uploads.
   Anyone doing work on a server often enough to need automation
   has also shared their SSH keys with the server, so using
   rsync, scp, or other such tools are the natural choice, offering
   far more efficiency than FTP/SFTP.  After all, if you're automating
   isn't efficiency the goal?  All such automation can be managed
   through LiveCode today. (In fact, mixing Expect with bash and
   LiveCode you can even write Ansible-like tools in LiveCode for
   very broad-scope automation, but that's a different topic.)

There are no doubt edge cases beyond these, but these three cover about 90% of upload use cases, and all the use cases you've described thus far for your organization.

If you have a need that falls outside of these common solutions, let's look at it. Perhaps there's a way to resolve even highly-specialized needs at minimal cost.

--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 ____________________________________________________________________
 ambassa...@fourthworld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com


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