Helps identify, overcome bottlenecks in code

FileMaker-based solution developers have often debugged and optimized their products mainly by intuition -- looking at a bit of code and trying out alternative ways to accomplish the same thing until it works better, particularly when they are revising solutions that have been developed for clients over several years. A new product by 24U called FM Bench promises to introduce optimization through code analysis and bottleneck identification, saving time.

The package, which retails for $997 for a single-server, unlimited-user license, applies a manufacturing-industry paradigm to streamlining code by identifying bottlenecks and suggesting an optimization. It includes components such as FM Bench Detective (a benchmarking tool), FM Bench Assistants (a market for third-party tools to help developers and enhance the efficiency of Bench Detective), FM Bench Analyzer (the tool that actively identifies the bottlenecks and reports optimization improvement) and FM Bench Optimizer (a resource guide for articles, videos and other training materials to help developers implement optimization suggestions).

Developers are said to save time by abandoning the try/fail model of manual optimization and instead rely on suggestions based on the benchmarking analysis. According to a poll from the company, 73 percent of FM developers optimize their solutions by intuition rather than systematically. The tool helps eliminate the "reactive" approach to solving issues, which is to wait until a client points out a problem or complains about solution speed. Performance improvements of up to 10x or more are possible by taking the more methodical, pro-active approach that FM Bench makes possible.

24U's FM Bench is compatible with both PPC and Intel Macs, running OS X 10.4 or later and FileMaker Pro 10v3 or newer. Mac OS X 10.6 or higher is recommended along with FM Pro 11v4 Advanced. A Windows version is also available for Windows XP SP3 and later. The current price is in effect as an introductory offer and includes bonus software. The price will rise to its normal $1,177 for the same license after February 8th.

by MacNN Staff