An estimated 1,400 people are convening in Phoenix this hebdomad for FileMaker ’s annual Developer Conference . Among the items on the order of business : lionise the database program ’s 20th anniversary . The coating debut on the PC platform as Nutshell in March 1984 . shortly thereafter , Nashoba Systems — FileMaker ’s original developer — start work on a Mac version , whichhit the mart in other 1985 .
FileMaker ’s watershed seems to have gotten lost amid the celebration for the Mac ’s 20th day of remembrance . And that ’s a ignominy , though it ’s just surprising . Despite the significant role FileMaker has play in the chronicle of the Mac platform , it often winds up look out on in party favour of flashier broadcast .
I ’m as guilty of this as much as any Mac user . WhenMacworldcelebrated the Mac ’s twentieth anniversary in our February 2004 issue , we included quite a little of praise for the common suspect — Photoshop , PageMaker , iMovie and so forward — but only a passing credit of FileMaker . That ’s a shame , because if you stop to think about it , few platform excogitate the same precept behind the Mac ’s development as well as FileMaker .
When Alan Albert , Dan Chadwick , Spec Bowers , and Jega Arulpargasam started work on what would become FileMaker 20 year ago , the earth of database applications was not for the faint of heart . dBase II ’s user interface was nothing more than a blink cursor . pfs : data file would warn exploiter seek to alter a field size or positioning that any alteration might damage their intact database . Not incisively textbook instance of user - friendliness .
FileMaker set out to be unlike . “ Our goals were mostly center around serviceability , though these design goals had a liberal impingement on computer architecture , scalability , and feature alternative , ” Albert narrate me in an interview for a story that will appear in an upcoming military issue ofMacworld . “ The database we created had to be useable by regular people , not database experts . ”
Twenty year , and dozens of updates afterwards , that principle still is at play with FileMaker . Yes , FileMaker Pro 7 can do a few more thing than the 20 - yr - one-time programme could . But apart from increase capacity , the app is still simple enough for anyone to use and scalable enough to grow as your needs and acquisition dictate .
That may never gain FileMaker a place alongside the Photoshops and the PageMakers of the world in the minds of Mac users . But its situation of the pantheon of authoritative Mac apps is unquestioned . So as the FileMaker developer community gathers this week to present the political platform , I ’d wish to take a moment to do likewise .
