weststreet Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Nice to see this place created for the inhouse people who (in my case, anyway) knew a little about FM, and were suddenly the "Filemaker Guy" for the company. Among other things, it was thought by management that spending a few hours a week should be enough to maintain about 20 separate files created in FM3, 4, 5, 6, 7. "Yeah, sure! I'll do it!", I said. Now 2 years later I have distilled and trashed and rehashed those files into a reliable scheduling and job tracking tool for a printing/multi media company. 10,000 records a year are created by some 45 users. I have learned a lot from this project. The most useful thing I've learned is that this is not the way to build a database in FM!! It's a real hack job. Trying to convince management that the db should really be built from the ground up is laughable. They see a db that works just fine! So I plug along, taking emailed requests for a new button here, and a new sort there. It struck me recently (especially after the FM9 release) that what I am really doing is preparing myself to become a REAL developer while getting paid for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudioFreak Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 I know how you feel. I started out the same way. Making a File for purchasing electronic components over 4 years ago. Now it has snowballed into 33 files and we do everything except invoicing(They use Quickbooks)using Filemaker now. Scheduling Production, tracking Inventory, organizing BOM's, etc........ I agree with the "Hack Job" cuz that is kinda what we had here, I am going through and redoing all the files here, now that I have a much better idea of how to go about it. I have a feeling a good portion of in house developers get tossed into it by chance such as you and I did. I do enjoy it so it all worked out good in the end. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genx Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 I was in house too Lol, gotta love those first hack jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcyrulik Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 We came to the conclusion that with some of our systems that rebuilding would upset the delicate balance of duct tape and luck that make them work in the first place :crazy2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aholtzapfel Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 We came to the conclusion that with some of our systems that rebuilding would upset the delicate balance of duct tape and luck that make them work in the first place I work in a solution that was first designed in FM 2. It has since be upgraded many many times and with each new upgrade a new layer of Scripts and layouts have been added. (at least 4 differant developers since that time). At this point, it should have a rewrite, but It still works and works well. A rewrite would take me 3, 6, 8, months to a year and the result would be files that were slightly more more efficiant but otherwise the same. It is hard to justify that. So, add more duct tape, Clean stuff up here and there, and keep plugging away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughan Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 Don't rewrite completely: instead, concentrate on replacing the old duct tape with new duct tape. Go for optimisation using new FMP techniques and features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcyrulik Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 That is what we do. A few of our systems go back to FM3. When I first took the job am in now, I had never heard of Filemaker. The hardest part was trying to learn the old ways so that I could trace through systems and also learning the new ways so that Icould add on and change/update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LelandLong Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Like we heard several times at DevCon this year, when considering updating any legacy systems, maybe look at "morphing" it. Use the separation model....keep the old data, but start creating a new UI. Eventually maybe pull old data into the new morph.... We plan on using this idea ourselves...starting now. We've been considering a re-vamp anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aholtzapfel Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 That is an excellent option, and have used it in Parts of my soulution and like the results. I still have a long way to go before I can do a good cleaning of the files that contain my data. (I was able to get rid of about 70 Layouts from one of my old files already, of course I still have about 250 in that file and more than half of those are most likely trash but, some may still be used somewhere, and until I can verify that, they stay. And Scripts....I won't go there right now.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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