All is ready for FileMaker developers here at DevCon 2017 in Phoenix, AZ. The sun is hot, the sky is clear, and the cacti are sharp. Inside the sprawling campus of the conference center, developers from all over the world are arriving after traveling the 30 miles or so from the airport in a Lyft, Uber, or taxi. Even on Saturday, quite a crowd of FileMaker developers had gathered. I could tell who they were: computer on the table top and beer in hand.
There is a lot of excitement about this year’s FileMaker Developer conference. That excitement is not misplaced. This year’s conference is looking to be a great one in many ways.
First, we are working with an exciting release: FileMaker 16 is a game-changing release, full of features that help better secure our data, connect to web services, and build better workflows for our customers.
Second, the sessions scheduled are astounding, not only in content, but also in diversity. Let me describe the highlights:
Tomorrow (Monday) is the training day. If you’re here at DevCon, but haven’t signed up yet, I encourage you to do so. Sara Severson and Bob Bowers are leading two Training Day sessions about Project Management and Training for Advanced Developers. Todd Geist has a training session titled, “Connecting FileMaker to the Web.” That’s an intriguing course as I greatly enjoy extending FileMaker’s functionality with web viewer and JavaScript integrations. There are two other Training Day sessions: “FileMaker Training for Beginners” and “FileMaker Training for Intermediate Developers,” led by James Medema and Chris Ippolite, respectively.
Tuesday and Wednesday are full days of sessions, each one worthy of attendance. Soliant Consulting team members are presenting twelve sessions. I’m excited and nervous for my two sessions titled, “Web Viewer Integrations” and “Refactoring our Skill Set: Changing how we do the same thing.” Outside of speaking, I’m looking forward to Mike Mitchell’s session “Abstraction and Indirection in FileMaker” and Ibrahim Bittar’s session, “FileMaker is Not an Island.” New this year is a group of sessions titled, “FileMaker In Action.” In these sessions, users of FileMaker will present how the platform is making their work lives easier.
And third, the community. FileMaker developers are a great group of men and women from all over the world that are passionate about the platform. We love talking FileMaker. We love talking about the “best” way to write a script, and we love making our users more efficient with their work inside the custom apps we build. At dinner, in the hall, at the bar, or at the pool party, there are folks ready to talk and argue, show off, and ask questions.
I look forward to the long week here in the oven (outside) and refrigerator (inside). See yah there!
