Re: [MacPerl] Accessing FileMaker Pro data

[Richard Gordon <gordon@mindspring.com>]

On 1/15/99 at 08:44, langfml@Eng.Auburn.EDU (Matthew Langford) wrote:

> Would FileMaker even be appropriate for larger sites?  I was thinking
> you could rig a FileMaker DBI interface using Apple Events, but the
> performance would likely be abominable.
>
I guess it depends on what you call large and how the site was used. Whether
in a web setting or not, FileMaker's adequacy degrades pretty quickly after
you get to maybe 50,000 primary records. It's still fine for single record
lookups and many other types of queries, but there are some indexing
oddities that can bring it to a crawl and, in any case, maintenance becomes
a large pain because it is so slow in most batch operations. If I understand
DBI correctly (and maybe I don't), it is aimed at accessing SQL-type tables
of columns and rows and wouldn't work with FileMaker's integrated
data/layout/script/you-name-it files that are full of objects of one kind or
another. For larger sites, I'd probably just use Butler SQL with a MacPerl
cgi and WebStar.

> Also, I'll bet the built-in server is much less flexible in translating
> and formatting responses to queries than a perl intermediate.  Not to
> mention not being able to use web frameworks designed database-agnosticly
> with DBI.  But it works, I 'spose, and is pretty simple to get running.
The built-in web companion is pretty good within its limits and relies on
CDML tags that are embedded in forms on the web pages. CDML is rather odd
and if you want to experiment with this, I strongly advise downloading a 30
day trial copy of HomePage 3.0 to use in forms creation- it's well
integrated with FileMaker and will make life a lot easier for you.

You could also use Lasso as a cgi with FileMaker and WebStar, but it's
fairly expensive and I don't know exactly why that would be any better than
using MacPerl. FileMaker's great virtue is that it is easy to create useful
relational interfaces and reports in far less time than with anything else.
Its big problem is that while it is no longer a boy, it is not yet a man and
is missing a lot of developer pieces (like serious debugging tools, support
for arrays and memory variables, less bizarre relational rules, low level
file I/O) that you take for granted in other environments.

Richard Gordon
Gordon Consulting & Design
Voice: 770-565-8267  Fax: 770-971-6887



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