On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 09:52:16PM -0700,
 Jeremy C. Reed <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote 
 a message of 18 lines which said:

> As for packages (ready-to-use) on the FTP server, consider fetching the
> file list only one time and save the results to search later. (Update
> every day or week.)

I simply rely on Squid to do so. I have ftp_proxy set (to
http://myproxy:3128/) and, the first time I retrieve the file, it is
actually downloaded, after that, I hit the cache.

Much easier than writing a custom script which manages caching for
every file on the Internet (XML DTDs...) I'm interested to read
often. I do not reinvent the wheel.