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Modern-day Access: Filemaker Pro was the contemporary competitor and still lives and has usergroups today; Airtables and similar (all SQL-based form managers) a

Modern-day Access: Filemaker Pro was the contemporary competitor and still lives and has usergroups today; Airtables and similar (all SQL-based form managers) are the modern options.

EvanAnderson 7y ago
FileMaker, in my experience, attracts a certain smug developer who simply cannot believe that there are more industrial-strength database systems and that FileMaker can't solve every possible problem in the world. Access devs, at least, don't seem to have that particular quirk.
- tbyehl 7y ago
  It's because they were all Mac users -- in the early days it was an Apple (Claris) product.
  - kn0where 7y ago
    Fun fact: it’s still owned by Apple
    - steve1977 7y ago
      Another fun fact: The company just rebranded itself to Claris again this summer.
- campfireveteran 7y ago
  I wouldn't rag on it or Access too much because it serves/d a purpose: app and data design for less technical users who are busy doing a million other things. I supported several dozen FMP apps at Stanford Student Housing (R&DE) as it was easy for analysts to make something quickly and worked at the scale needed. Later, they used proper databases, reporting, and app-ish tools. FMP ran on a half dozen early Xserves which used goofy, consumer-grade parts inconsistently while looking Apple over-designed.
  - EvanAnderson 7y ago
    I'm not talking-down either one. They're both great tools for their purpose. I've used Access a ton. I guess I'm talking about a cultural difference. It's been my experience that Access devs know when a problem is mismatched for Access (and move to storing data in SQL Server, etc). FileMaker devs seem to press on even when it's clear that the platform isn't capable of supporting their needs. As one anecdote (of several): I support an instance of a FileMaker application w/ several 500MB+ "FMP" files, each of which take _hours_ to "integrity check" when the "FileMaker Server" process crashes unexpectedly. We talked to the dev about putting at least some of the data into an RDBMS (MSSQL, Postgres, etc) and they scoffed at the idea. It simply didn't occur to their mind that the platform might not be a good fit for the purpose.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      “(Almost) the same SQL as the big boy toys" was the most redeeming quality of Access. It somehow managed to be beginner accessible and productive without dumbing down, reinventing the wheel skillset lock-in. Had Microsoft gone for a more custom interface like Filemaker instead of just nicely packaging up more general tools, my entire life might be very different and probably not better, even 15 years after having touched Access for the last time.
flukus 7y ago
Unfortunately it silently fails. Years ago I worked for a company that claimed to have largest Filemaker Pro database in the southern hemisphere. One day there was some sort of disk issue and filemaker silently failed, then for months it kept pretending that everything was fine, it just wasn't writing to disk. This lasted until a power outage one day when the company discovered it had lost months of customer data, no backups of course, the backup system was working fine but there was no new information being written. Data loss isn't forgivable, especially in the non-technical user space that filemaker is aiming for.
- foobar1962 7y ago
  I'd put that on the DBAs. Once a week they should have been pulling down backups and testing for problems. They'd have also discovered the problem with the backups themselves.
  - flukus 7y ago
    90+% of the good use cases for filemaker are at places with no DBA's, it's meant to be a database tool for non-technical people and small businesses. If you had DBA's they'd just want to lock it down and eliminate the remaining 10% anyway.
    - goatlover 7y ago
      Still, someone should have been checking the backups on a regular basis, because anything can fail.
    - foobar1962 7y ago
      If a company is claiming to have the largest database in the Southern Hemisphere, they'd have in-house developers (who double as FM dbas). I'd be interested in knowing who the company was, and the metric they used to judge their database size. I worked on one that was 4GB data and >40GB binary files (photos, documents). Interestingly, when all the data was removed and the file was optimised it came to less than 2MB.

Modern-day Access: Filemaker Pro was the contemporary competitor and still lives and has usergroups today; Airtables and similar (all SQL-based form managers) are the modern options.

EvanAnderson 7y ago

FileMaker, in my experience, attracts a certain smug developer who simply cannot believe that there are more industrial-strength database systems and that FileMaker can't solve every possible problem in the world. Access devs, at least, don't seem to have that particular quirk.

tbyehl 7y ago
It's because they were all Mac users -- in the early days it was an Apple (Claris) product.
- kn0where 7y ago
  Fun fact: it’s still owned by Apple
  - steve1977 7y ago
    Another fun fact: The company just rebranded itself to Claris again this summer.
campfireveteran 7y ago
I wouldn't rag on it or Access too much because it serves/d a purpose: app and data design for less technical users who are busy doing a million other things. I supported several dozen FMP apps at Stanford Student Housing (R&DE) as it was easy for analysts to make something quickly and worked at the scale needed. Later, they used proper databases, reporting, and app-ish tools. FMP ran on a half dozen early Xserves which used goofy, consumer-grade parts inconsistently while looking Apple over-designed.
- EvanAnderson 7y ago
  I'm not talking-down either one. They're both great tools for their purpose. I've used Access a ton. I guess I'm talking about a cultural difference. It's been my experience that Access devs know when a problem is mismatched for Access (and move to storing data in SQL Server, etc). FileMaker devs seem to press on even when it's clear that the platform isn't capable of supporting their needs. As one anecdote (of several): I support an instance of a FileMaker application w/ several 500MB+ "FMP" files, each of which take _hours_ to "integrity check" when the "FileMaker Server" process crashes unexpectedly. We talked to the dev about putting at least some of the data into an RDBMS (MSSQL, Postgres, etc) and they scoffed at the idea. It simply didn't occur to their mind that the platform might not be a good fit for the purpose.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    “(Almost) the same SQL as the big boy toys" was the most redeeming quality of Access. It somehow managed to be beginner accessible and productive without dumbing down, reinventing the wheel skillset lock-in. Had Microsoft gone for a more custom interface like Filemaker instead of just nicely packaging up more general tools, my entire life might be very different and probably not better, even 15 years after having touched Access for the last time.

flukus 7y ago

Unfortunately it silently fails. Years ago I worked for a company that claimed to have largest Filemaker Pro database in the southern hemisphere. One day there was some sort of disk issue and filemaker silently failed, then for months it kept pretending that everything was fine, it just wasn't writing to disk. This lasted until a power outage one day when the company discovered it had lost months of customer data, no backups of course, the backup system was working fine but there was no new information being written. Data loss isn't forgivable, especially in the non-technical user space that filemaker is aiming for.

foobar1962 7y ago
I'd put that on the DBAs. Once a week they should have been pulling down backups and testing for problems. They'd have also discovered the problem with the backups themselves.
- flukus 7y ago
  90+% of the good use cases for filemaker are at places with no DBA's, it's meant to be a database tool for non-technical people and small businesses. If you had DBA's they'd just want to lock it down and eliminate the remaining 10% anyway.
  - goatlover 7y ago
    Still, someone should have been checking the backups on a regular basis, because anything can fail.
  - foobar1962 7y ago
    If a company is claiming to have the largest database in the Southern Hemisphere, they'd have in-house developers (who double as FM dbas). I'd be interested in knowing who the company was, and the metric they used to judge their database size. I worked on one that was 4GB data and >40GB binary files (photos, documents). Interestingly, when all the data was removed and the file was optimised it came to less than 2MB.