On 13/12/2010, at 7:56 PM, Steve Cassidy wrote:

> Ha ha, it's quite true this brings it into line with other applications! Of course, the question is really the perennial one of whether Filemaker is just an application or not. Many of us would like it to be defined as an application development environment, which of course might change perceptions entirely.   :)


And I think that was the primary point of much of my previous email! :p  

The reality is it's both.  And that's one of the amazing things about it.  

I think that fact frustrates the heck out of many of us developers, because sometimes we forget about all those users who just use it as an application (glorified bento, data-oriented and friendlier excel), but I wonder how many of us would be in business if it wasn't for that fact.  I believe FM's popularity is partly due to its ability to so well cater to both markets.  Alas, in some ways that same fact causes it to cater to neither quite as well as we'd like.

Wouldn't it be nice if the division between the two was greater: ie. if FMPA was *more* of an application development environment than it is (eg. XCode), and if FMP was *more* of an application than it is (eg. better and multi-user Bento), or something like that... 


David Thorp
All About Abundance Pty Ltd
Sydney / Brisbane.  Australia.
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