[Commentary] Instead of Servoy vs FileMaker, is there room for Servoy AND FileMaker?

by David Workman

INTRODUCTION

If you are a FileMaker Developer, you have no doubt heard of Servoy by now. The controversy surrounding Servoy and FileMaker is such that you would have to be using FileMaker Pro 3 at an unmanned weather station at the North Pole to have missed the new kid on the block.

Servoy was released about a year and a half ago while FileMaker Inc. released version 7 of their product about a half-year ago. Since then—fueled on by marketing, product comparisons and a dose of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) here and there—the two sides have polarized into two distinct and separate camps in the minds of many.

Where in all of this is an objective viewpoint? Right here! Hehe, actually not quite. My personal viewpoint is that Servoy blows FileMaker Pro 7 out of the water—along with Oracle Forms, VB.net , RealBasic, 4D, Powerbuilder, Access and anything else that walks and talks like a business application development tool.

Why do I think this? Because I'm very comfortable at developing with Servoy. I know where every function is listed, I am rarely stumped for more than a few minutes on a coding error, I edit the preferences file by hand, I write plugins—I can turn Servoy upside down, shake it and then put the pieces back together blindfolded.

And therein lies the rub. We developers tend to get...well, rather "attached" to the development tools we are good at. In a recent argument with a VB.net developer buddy of mine I shouted, "Servoy's daddy can beat up Bill Gates' daddy!" It's funny when you're drunk...maybe.... Even more strange: not long ago I worked with a COBOL developer who insisted that COBOL would never die...and this was well after Y2K. Go figure.

It seems to me that developer tool arguments are similar to debating whether the earth was flat or round in the 15th century. The uneducated consensus at the time was that the world was flat. Both sides used "facts" to argue whether God existed or not. Lost in the religious debate was the notion that the existence of God might not have a whole lot to do with what shape the earth is.

Pitting Servoy vs FileMaker has taken on a lot of similarities in my opinion. Whichever camp you are in, it is a matter of principle to "prove" a particular position by whatever means possible. Lost in the competition is the idea that maybe it's not about one "or" the other.

Instead of Servoy vs FileMaker, is there room for Servoy AND FileMaker? I believe yes.

HISTORY LESSON

Years ago, FileMaker created the phrase "workgroup database." In the days when all you had were MS Word, Excel and Access being used on desktop PCs, all FileMaker had to prove was that it was better than those products. To this end, FileMaker devoted most of its development and marketing energy—number one product in the "workgroup database" market year after year; a white paper proving Access was a wimp compared to FileMaker; features were added to easily convert Excel spreadsheets into FileMaker databases; etc.

FileMaker's success in this regard is evidenced by the astounding number of applications written by non-programmers ("knowledge workers" in FileMaker terms) over the years. You can find FileMaker being used for simple data tracking applications on a single desktop to full-blown applications that run entire businesses. The reason? FileMaker's unique accessibility to non-programmers.

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

FileMaker's ease of use to the non-programmer means that historically it has given up certain features and functionality that programmers take for granted. If you are a programmer and you have had the pleasure of writing a 49.9 database FileMaker solution (or more—heaven help you) you know something of what I am talking about here. There is a certain point where what FileMaker gives up becomes a serious liability. The ease of use of the point and click interface for ScriptMaker makes your index finger drop off when you have to do several thousand scripts. Building, maintaining and installing new versions of a large application makes you yearn for a complete separation of data from GUI and logic. Creating a relationship and a portal to hide and show a button illustrates why an object oriented and event driven interface would be nice to have. Then there is tab and window management...I'll stop while I can—but you get the idea.

THE FILEMAKER WAY

To a FileMaker developer, it is argued that the functional trade-off is worth the ease of use of the product. FileMaker can get you a solution in a quarter of the time that a traditional solution requiring an expensive programmer can get you.

I agree with this philosophy up to a certain point. When you need to scale the solution, interact with other data sources, have 100's and 1000's of users—these kinds of needs rapidly change the playing field. FileMaker's ease of use and fast development time start to count far less in the overall scheme of things.

FILEMAKER 7

Oy, version 7 of FileMaker. The much vaunted release that was supposed to fix the problems and make all the developers happy. And as a bonus, it was going to be faster than Oracle. (Remember Chung Le's opening session at DevCon a few years back? Here is what he is up to now.) Along with the recent departure of Chung Le, the multiple year delay of FileMaker 7 (face it, versions 5 and 6 were stop gap measures—some would argue that version 3 was the last non-incremental release) saw the departure of a number of key people responsible for developing FileMaker 7.

In spite of the delay and turmoil, a lot of neat things made it into this release: they figured out security (external authentication is nice), relationships got multiple matches with a variety of operators, users can create layouts, multiple windows can be open, there are a lot more functions and you can even write your own (if you have Developer), the portal "object" got beefed up, and my favorite: a big update to instant web publishing (it is usable now).

What I'm not keen on: LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of dialogue boxes (most of which are modal), the graphical interface to relationships (I'm probably a minority on this one), no text version of ScriptMaker (STILL—how long has the calculation engine been text based—ALWAYS), no form history, same graphics engine as was in version ONE (okay, it could be version TWO that I'm thinking of—but my memory could be a little faulty trying to remember back to the 1980's...), not very good at multi-platform support, and to top it all off—it's friggin' expensive.

At the end of the day FileMaker 7 still doesn't have separation of data and GUI/logic, it still doesn't have an object based and event driven interface, it still doesn't have versioning, it still has serious limitations on users, and it is still difficult (or expensive) to access FileMaker's data from outside sources.

ENTER SERVOY

Take everything I don't like about FileMaker 7 and apply to Servoy in the complete inverse. The only thing I can't say for Servoy is that just like FileMaker 7, it is not faster than Oracle. Bummers. Good news is that it is just as fast as Oracle when you use Oracle as the data source. Yay! (I know, I know—a cheap shot.)

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

If you have downloaded the free trial version of Servoy and poked around a bit, you have seen enough to notice that Servoy owes a lot to the FileMaker way of doing things—on the surface at least. It's a form-based development environment with many of the same GUI objects that you are familiar with. It's in the innards that things start to diverge. Terms and phrases such as "JavaScript", "SQL", "methods", "object oriented," "event driven" and "data source connection" are all new. It is readily apparent that Servoy is not for casual use by someone whose technical experience is limited to creating spreadsheets.

To a programmer, however, Servoy is as slick and as fast a tool to develop applications with as there is on the market today. The catch being: "to a programmer." And this means some knowledge of certain programming fundamentals is necessary to really "get" Servoy. If your technical experience is completely that of FileMaker, Servoy will most definitely not seem easy to you when you first open it up.

However, if you are a geek who continually expands your horizon and you went from FileMaker to AppleScript to Interface Builder to web programming—be prepared to have your world of potential expanded significantly with Servoy.

THE SERVOY ADVANTAGE

Ever been in a meeting where you are trying to sell your FileMaker developer services and you spend the whole time defending FileMaker's ability to handle the problem? Does it scale, does it talk to our other applications, is it secure, is there replication—on and on and on. In this scenario, the cause is usually due to an annoying IT type who isn't suitably enough impressed by FileMaker.

Servoy uses technology that all IT types understand and like. Javascript is ubiquitous, SQL is common knowledge, they can use ANY data source vendor (several of which they probably already own and have deployed), zero-deployment of the application to users, installation of application updates is a 10-second process due to built-in versioning (and can be done remotely), you can use current business logic contained in back-end triggers, etc...the list goes on. Unlike FileMaker, with Servoy you always win over the IT types.

MY OPINION ON FILEMAKER PRO 7

It seems to me that FileMaker lost its way a bit on the road to version 7. On one hand, the ease of use factor that FileMaker is famous for got a little harder. At the top end, developers got a few cool things but fundamentally FileMaker 7 is the same old FileMaker. The result is a product that can only be described as a little weird (like an old house that has had various sections added or redone every few years). Thankfully, not so weird as to lose the casual user who can still open it up and start doing something productive right away. And instant web publishing is very cool (keep working that angle FileMaker).

Conclusion: FileMaker 7 is still the easiest database productivity tool for the casual user—a.k.a. the "knowledge worker."

MY OPINION ON SERVOY

"It slices, it dices, it's a touchdown!" Obviously, too much Sports Center in my life at the opening of football season here in the U.S. Said another way: Servoy is to the programmer what FileMaker is to the knowledge worker. End of story. Don't even try to do in FileMaker what can be done in Servoy—that's a battle that can't be won.

FILEMAKER INC: ARE YOU LISTENING?

Buy Servoy now while you can get it for a price that you can afford. In a couple of years, they might be buying you. Refocus FileMaker to be the best product for knowledge workers (add it to the iLife suite—it makes for an awesome product at $50), and make it easy to convert up to the big leagues with Servoy (bundle Servoy with the Xserve—the only thing missing from the server software is a good desktop application development tool) when they outgrow FileMaker. Both products in the same portfolio would make quite a lineup.

CONCLUSION

If you are a FileMaker developer, it can only help you to learn another tool. Servoy is an easy step (especially after mastering FileMaker 7) into the SQL world that you have avoided for so long. With Servoy, you can now do things better and faster than Oracle Forms, VB.net, Powerbuilder, and all the other variants. Quite a different playing field than what you are used to!

The facts are out and it's time to quit arguing about the shape of the world. Instead, move on to the reality of the future. If FileMaker Inc. (or Apple) were to do the smart thing and buy Servoy, you would be hearing a completely different marketing message coming out of them overnight.

So do yourself a favor, look past the FUD they are putting out now, and check out the future for yourself.