Hello and welcome. I’m Kevin Frank, and I’ve been using FileMaker Pro since the late ’80s… professionally since 1995. The expression “hack” has both positive and negative connotations. Here it is defined as “a tip, trick or technique that helps you solve a problem,” and the best hacks are the ones that can be re-used and modified to meet a variety of challenges. Or, put another way, as I read recently in Street Fighting Mathematics, “A tool is a trick I use twice.”
The FileMaker community is an extremely generous one, and I have benefited enormously from the shared wisdom of my colleagues. I refrain from listing individual names here because, a) the list would be a mile long, and b) I would surely forget someone who deserved to be remembered. But I want to state up front that much of what appears in this blog is a result, either direct, or indirect, of my ongoing interactions with others in the community. I make few, if any, claims of originality. When I reference a technique that is clearly identified with a specific person, I of course give credit where credit is due.
What I do not do, however, is laboriously attempt to cite every influence or trace the lineage of every tip, trick and technique. Much of that information lives in the pool of common (or what should be common) FileMaker knowledge, as far as I’m concerned.
My goal here is to explore what interests me, and what I’ve found particularly useful. Some postings are practical musings of a working developer, and others are more philosophical. In the long run, I hope to produce a resource that will help developers be more productive with FileMaker Pro.
Kevin Frank
Kevin Frank & Associates
www.kevinfrank.com
kfrank@kevinfrank.com