FileMaker
Analysis of Apple Computer subsidiary FileMaker and the FileMaker product. Related subjects include:
What hard-core transactional applications have actually been built in MySQL, PostgreSQL, EnterpriseDB, or FileMaker?
And here’s the biggie.
Question of the day #3
What complex, high-volume transactional applications have actually been built in mid-range DBMS such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, FileMaker, or EnterpriseDB?
I’ve been flamed for suggesting that MySQL or FileMaker aren’t fully equal to Oracle and DB2 in supporting hard-core transactional applications. (Which is ironic, because I’ve also been flamed for suggesting hard-core transactional support isn’t as big a deal for DBMS selection as some relational purists insist. But I digress …) So I’m putting the question out there — what impressive transactional applications do the stand-alone mid-range DBMS actually support? Read more
| Categories: EnterpriseDB and Postgres Plus, FileMaker, Mid-range, MySQL, OLTP, Open source, PostgreSQL | 20 Comments |
Martin MC Brown likes Bento
Apple/FileMaker has a new low-end personal database product called Bento. It’s Mac-only and cheap. My former Computerworld blogging colleague Martin MC Brown likes it. That’s a solid recommendation.
Edit: Fixed the link.
| Categories: FileMaker | Leave a Comment |
Alpha Five claims to clobber FileMaker 9 on SQL performance
The Alpha Five guys decided to test the performance of their software vs. FileMaker on queries to a foreign database, and published the results. Given that Alpha Five designed and performed the tests, I bet you can guess who won.
From a quick read, it seems all the tests were single-table queries, and some or all were designed to highlight the flaws of a specific design choice made in FileMaker (doing certain work itself when it would be more efficient to push it to the foreign DBMS).
| Categories: Alpha Five, FileMaker | 6 Comments |
Filemaker for composite application development
It’s not accurate to judge a product by its most obnoxious or least clueful partisans. Hence, even though some insult-spewers take umbrage at an accurate description of FileMaker’s capabilities,* it wouldn’t be fair to write the product off entirely.
*Mercifully, none of said insult-spewers seems to actually work at the company. I must confess that this makes it easier for me to take the (somewhat) high road here.
Possibly due to an actual understanding of enterprise technology, Tim Dietrich has weighed in on on the discussion from a different angle. Here’s a quote in which he gives an example of very successful FileMaker use:
Read more
| Categories: EAI, EII, ETL, ELT, ETLT, FileMaker | 2 Comments |
The FileMaker story
Unfortunately, the first draft of this post got eaten. I’m now trying again.
In response to its small but vocal constituency, I got myself briefed on the FileMaker story. My conclusion, in a nutshell, is that FileMaker sometimes is a good alternative to low-end use of a standard relational DBMS. If you do feel able to use more standard-style products, you often should, for all sorts of obvious flexibility and future-proofing reasons. But if you can’t, or if you’re really confident the project won’t grow past a certain level, the FileMaker class of products can be a very appealing alternative.
Make no mistake; FileMaker is very different from conventional DBMS/app dev tool combos (and that’s the right comparison, as it combines aspects of both product categories into one). Read more
| Categories: FileMaker, OLTP | 14 Comments |
And then there is FileMaker
Chris Kubica of Application Architects, LLC is a big FileMaker fan. And there are of course reviews and articles that agree with him, although when FileMaker sponsored this white paper they did not choose an author famed for the independence of his analysis.
So should FileMaker be included on my list of midrange OLTP DBMS or not?
| Categories: FileMaker | 20 Comments |