Ernest Koe, BoB

I discovered the Mac with Microsoft Excel, and then came FileMaker Pro 2.1. I let my supervisory staff deal with the aches and pains of page-chasing while I spent the next five months writing my first database (as if I knew what I was getting into.) Apple Computer actually came to do a marketing video on our Mac-solution company, as we were the alleged champions of the Workgroup Server (brawn and brains) and had plenty of Quadras supplying documents to our imagesetters, But the film crew was particularly interested with our Claris solution, FileMaker Pro. As we implemented this flat file – look-up dependent solution, I declared my position as plant manager obsolete, which it surely was.

What was more important than the technology itself (although I still am grateful for that defining moment) was the fact that sound thinking stands behind and substantiates any database solution. Any logic can produce an answer, but only right logic produces right answers.

My point here is that while FileMaker is accessible to those who can write simple and even complex calculations, do tricks with the interface, and dazzle the impressionable, the solutions to problems far exceed the ease of use. Anyone can make the logical claim that apples = oranges. It remains untrue unless, of course, one postulates that both are fruit and that fruit is all the same, given its class. Data modeling and problems that face real business are like this. Answers to these kinds of questions are matters of clarification and priority.

I am still in management and am by no means an expert developer, although I have been using FileMaker every day since that auspicious event in the early 90s. I will say however, that this discussion is a worthy one and I would only hope that we ( I say “we” with great reluctance) in the development community embrace the idea that our job is not to provide information, as in “the latest dataset.” But instead, we must continue to “solve the problem.” The task of trying to persuade a group of executives to state what they really mean, what is right and correct for their enterprise, is arduous at best. Most haven’t the slightest clue of what it means to land on two feet, as they are terrific dancers.

FileMaker has, to their good fortune, proverbially graduated from college, gaining some respect in the business community and, even within the phyla of IT professionals. But it still doesn’t solve problems unless those who are developing solutions know that there is even a problem that needs to be solved. It is very much like that Aristotelian axiom, “Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions.” When will we ever quit bothering with technique and begin thinking in earnest about the larger issues? We are still left with the task of herding cats!

Donald Kleinschmidt

We have a big IT department that cannot figure out how to provide services to my client group. We have a series of political problems that have slowed down my ability to migrate/upgade the software base past version 6. I have a mental bandwidth limit that is stretched thin trying to manage both the technical development and the money/political process to keep a vital system alive inside my department.

I think the key to success has been and will continue to be making connections between technology solutions like FileMaker and business problems like managing a group of professionals in a production environment. My ability as a design professional (Architect by training) to understand process as well as outcomes fits very well with the development environment that FMP has taken great pains to maintian through the life of their products. Having said that I do need to upgrade my skills by training as Stephen suggests.

The great weakness that afflicts large organizations is the blindness that technical people have towards business process and the reciprocal distain that professionals have for “geeks” who can’t seem to get past their own limited worldview. Bridging that gap is a key value for any business and something that I have been able to do using FMP.

We need to keep the doors wide open to the novice business person who adopts FileMaker as a survival tool. These people tend to be the creative synthetic types that can put things together and make a go of it. I would hope that FileMaker Inc. would develop more support for this type of entry level developer while the rest of the experts do what you have been doing so well for so long namely keep the seminars and training sessions elevated to push the limits. We need that too.

Profit is not a dirty word. Charging money for expertise is fine. Keeping a good list of oppertunities would be my challenge.

thanks experts, you rock!

George Hutchinson

Pretty strong words … “the days of
self-learning for the novice are largely past”

Maybe so; however I believe them to be accurate.

Sticking to roots may mean abandoning paths to growth. FMI has not stuck to roots. It has expanded and grown since January of 1998. And that growth has come largely in areas where it was not present before then.

“All of my clients are self taught, non-technical people, and have done some amazing stuff….
FileMaker was meant for humans, not geeks.”

This confuses non–technical with non–trained. There are some amazing solutions out there developed by people whose principal job is not as a full–time, professional developer. But then, many times, in a single blinding moment, these can fail spectacularly because the non–trained individual didn’t know about or didn’t enforce—for example—referential integrity or record–locking or prescriptive security measures.

The future of the products depends on having a skilled development community, whether independent developers or in–house ones.

Steven H. Blackwell

“FileMaker Pro 7 & 8 + training (for Mac) – $100

“I’m sticking with HyperCard. So you can take advantage of my foray into the mysteries of FileMaker Pro (for Mac OS X). I have original discs and manuals of version 7 & 8 plus training video CD (Virtual Training Company FileMaker Pro 7) and several books and magazines. Well over $400 worth of software. Yours for $100.00. Call xxx”

If FileMaker would just stick to its roots. The FileMaker Pro Tour video tag line is still “Go ahead, Be creative, No training wheels required”

All of my clients are self taught, non-technical people, and have done some amazing stuff

FileMaker was meant for humans, not geeks

And I fear that failure, which may represent an internal schism, poses a sort of viral infection risk for the future– an unresolved tension that could prove fatal if, by trying to sell to both Jean the shop owner and to the Events department for the City of Boston, they end up selling to neither. The higher level of education needed for 8 should exclude Jean, in my view.

I have noticed over the past six years that while the FileMaker family of products have grown significantly, the expectations for product mastery have not grown in similar stead. The “legendary ease of use” still exists, but only in the sense that it is still easy to create solutions that conform to the capabilities of the 2.1 product. What many productivity users and some in Santa Clara have failed to notice is that as the products expanded both in number and in scope, the required learning for mastery has grown in accord.

FileMaker Pro is no longer the sole purview of the domain expert; it is no longer simply a productivity tool. I believe there is a duality to the product with which many are uncomfortable. While it is very easy for the novice to acquire the skills to use FMP much as a novice would use Word, mastery of the tools not only takes longer, but I would argue is inaccessible to some. A decade ago having five years experience with FMP would qualify someone as being an advanced user. Today, fifteen years experience says little to nothing about the skill level of a user or developer. FileMaker 8 brings the product closer than ever to an application development environment, and to be successful in building an application with it requires having a very broad understanding of the product at a very deep level of detail.

What is of primary interest to me is this new partitioning of developers, largely a reclassification of previously “advanced” developers as intermediate and intermediate as novice. I believe that for the product to be successful FMI will need to attract and retain a new “advanced” class of developers to boost credibility of the product line and to provide the training necessary to ensure continued viability and entrenchment of the product. To date I have not seen any tangible attempt to do so and that worries me.