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I'm working on a PHP development tool and implement FTP/SFTP at the moment for remote file access. I wonder how popular WebDAV is for web development.
I have to say that among developers i've never heard somebody using it after the first hype years in 2003/2004
I have found it to be tricky to setup, difficult to troubleshoot. As a general rule I avoid it like the plague. I only really know Microsoft environments, so cant speak for the other implementations of WebDAV but I think the fact that as a default you don't even get the client on a Windows Vista installation speaks volumes.
Your question is specific to web developers, and I cannot comment on that.
In general, WebDAV is getting more popular from my observations. Thanks to services like MobileMe iDisk, many iPad/iPhone applications can speak WebDAV. WebDAV is also natively supported by Windows (XP/Vista/7), Mac OS X and also by Linux (quality of support in these native clients is another matter). This gives you a nice collection of clients.
On the other hand, only real benefit of WebDAV protocol is that it is based on HTTP. It's not very efficient and can be indeed difficult to troubleshoot.
Yes, WebDAV is becomming increasingly popular. Because it runs on http. No routers to configure, no firewall to change. There are some free WebDAV services around as well.
