[geeks] RANT (ftp)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:32:30 -0400
"Bryan Fullerton" <fehwalker at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/24/06, velociraptor <velociraptor at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Makes you wonder why people question that there are legal uses for
> > BitTorrent...
> 
> Every time I see a torrent download link for a piece of software (or
> any data, for that matter) it makes me feel happier about using it.
> 
> > I suspect the real reason for corporations turning off ftp is more
> > the desire to get all traffic stats into a single system so as to
> > make pretty pictures for management.
> 
> Yes, suits love the pictures. And they really love the pictures of
> stats - abstraction of an abstraction, reducing any significant
> reality impact.
> 
> > Generating homogenous stats is most
> > easily done leveraging the existing web infrastructure.  While I
> > understand this desire, having supported the horror that is Urchin,
> > I can't condone it.  (Yes, I know it's "better" than WebTrends, but
> > that doesn't make Urchin *good*.)
> 
> I would have given a kidney to switch to Urchin back when I had to
> support a WebTrends Enterprise install processing *log files* for a
> 1M+ view/day web site (there is no logic in this, don't try to find
> it).

Just curious, what would you rather do than process log files to get
the information?

Personally, I prefer doing it that way.

I hate stats in general because I rarely find them accurate, but if I
must do it I rather not corrupt the proper way the WWW is supposed to
operate.

For log processing when the stat-eaters are being really anal, I
would move all of the log processing to specialized machines.

Alternately, I'd use an Apache module to update a stats database to
avoid the logs.

I *HATE* using URLs and redirection to generate stats.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- [javalin: an unwieldy programming weapon
used to stab a software project through the heart until dead]