FM Sorting

[Genx]

Does anyone else think that the time FM takes for sorting and summaries is kind of embarrassing?

[Jalz]

Genx,

I second your opinion! I was hoping these issues would have been sorted out when they rewrote the app to.fp7 format. Our local FM rep at one stage said the speed was comparable to an SQL database.

I remember I was at a client and wanted to demo a report. It had quite a few subsumaries and sorts based on calculated fields, it took ages to appear....extremely embarassing.

[Søren Dyhr]

Reread Ernest Koes wise words, the tool is not really a database....

http://www.proofgroup.com/articles/2006/jun/filemakery_part_i

...you shall not ignore the niche the tool as such occupies by it's present virtues ... I'm actually surpriced you of all people tries to pull the tool out of it's realm. You have a skills-set allowing you switch from foxtrot to jive very swiftly ... why not do it use the right tool to the right task ... say exploit the SQL connectivity???

One single point that really drags down the speed is the use of filemaker's unique option of calc'fields instead of event triggers, they're there to provide productivity to "regular-joe" as Koe call's it, since "regular-joe" already knows this functionality from spread sheets, and then recognize how neatly it fits into apples strategy:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9302662

Where it's said:

Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology. Too many technology firms think that clever innards are enough to sell their products, resulting in gizmos designed by engineers for engineers.

I know I've raised this a lot of times, but why do you in particular not recognize this choice of niche?? Who would you like Filemaker/Apple to compete with and why??

--sd

[Søren Dyhr]

Our local FM rep at one stage said the speed was comparable to an SQL database.

Evangelist are in their nature, not supposed to make educated guesses ... merely evangelizing!

http://norway.novaint.com/paradigmasoft/benchmark/fm.html

--sd

[Genx]

I don't think of it as a database, it doesn't change the fact that it takes like 30 seconds to sort 10,000 date fields.

[Genx]

Søren,

Go to FileMaker.com and count the number of times the word "Database" is used on the site (pay particular note to the title). They're clearly trying to position themselves as a company that makes databases and not just toys like bento. That being said, bets are on that bento sorts 50 times quicker than FileMaker.

[jasongodoy]

I completely agree with Genx! I wish FileMaker would really take into account that not just small work groups use their flagship product "FileMaker Pro". FileMaker is unbelievably great and has saved me many times, but issues such as sorting on the client and not the server seems like an issue that should have been addressed when FMI first released the FileMaker Server product line. Since FMI controls their own ecosystem, sorting on the server (where the database is already being hosted from) seems like a logical feature to have.

I wish FileMaker wouldn't run out of gas when a solution starts to grow rapidly. It would be great if FileMaker offered a "Real Server Advanced" product which was built from the ground up for high performance (clustering), large scalability use (including the FM Sorting performance increase that Genx speaks of), and near unlimited web use (not IWP or 100 CWP connections). "FileMaker Server" would still handle the niche that FMI already has with small businesses (250 user limit, etc), but step up to the "Server Advanced" product line and you would get a whole different beast.

Then developers can really buy/dive into FileMaker as a true platform for building solutions and not just use it as an intermediate solution before someone new would have to be developed. Isn't this what FMI wants?

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

J

[Genx]

You know a real "advanced" product is actually not a half bad idea. They could probably charge a fair bit more for it too.... then again they are already charging a fair bit for the clients.

Anyway, it's an interesting spin that I've not seen before though I suspect they would need to rewrite a heck of a lot of code to let the host server deal reliably with that many more users.

That being said, I like it :