Why not just put it all in an e-mail attachment. Geez. Everyone knows
that's a great idea.
While HTTP remains popular as a way to interact with humans, especially if
you want to try to do redirects, acknowledge license agreements, etc., FTP
is the file transfer protocol of choice for basic file transfer, and can
be trivially automated, optimized, and is overall a good choice for file
transfer.
Does anyone know what "FTP" stands for, anyways? I've always wondered...
... JG
File Transfer Protocol.
I know - it's a tricky one that, don't feel bad 
Regards, K.
I was mainly poking at the fact that Bill seemed to be comparing SSL-wrapped file transfer with non-SSL-wrapped file transfer, but I'm intrigued by the idea that FTP without SSL might be faster than HTTP without SSL, since in my mind outside the minimal amount of signalling involved they both amount to little more than a single TCP stream. Bill sent me a link to a paper. I will read it.
However, I take some small issue with the assertion that FTP is easier to script than HTTP. The only way I have ever found it easy to script FTP (outside of writing dedicated expect scripts to drive clients, which really seems like cheating) is to use tools like curl, and I don't see why HTTP is more difficult than FTP as a protocol in that case. Perhaps I'm missing something.
Joe
It looks like curl can upload stuff (-d @file) but you have to have something on the server to accept it. FTP sounds easier.
Speak for yourself. I haven't used FTP to transfer files in 10 years now. About 7 years ago I turned off FTP support for all of our webhosting clients, and forced them to use SFTP. 3 left, for a net loss of $45/month. And we stopped having to deal with the massive undertaking that supporting FTP properly chrooted and capable of dealing with all parts of the multi-mount web platform required. We've never looked back.
Ever once in a while I find someone who's offering a file I want only via FTP, and I chide them and they fix it 