The fRiDaY File

Does anyone remember SilverStream Software?

It's strange, nobody does.

What's stranger still is that huge disasters usually get their own Wikipedia articles, but not SilverStream, just this mention in the article on Novell:

In July 2002, Novell acquired SilverStream Software, a leader in web services-oriented application, but a laggard in the marketplace.

At the time (late 1990s) it was said that all the good programmers had left PowerSoft and Lotus to work on SilverStream. Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but I do know this: "laggard in the marketplace" is Wikipedia-speak for "complete piece of siht", and that's what prompted me to publish this article on June 17, 1999:

SilverStream By The Numbers

Communication among SilverStream programmers is more efficient when numbers are assigned to common conversational elements.

For example,

"How do I [do some thing] in SilverStream?"

may be answered simply:

"32! 33!"

The person asking the question might then express shock by

"Oh, man, 73! 1!"

---

Here's the list, SilverStream By The Numbers:...

1 - the Help sucks

2 - it's so slow

3 - Simple Actions are useless, click on Java

4 - you're at the 3GL level all the time except when you want to be

5 - that's really really really hard to do in SilverStream

6 - you can't use javadoc

14 - the Designer's locked up

15 - the Designer's using all the CPU

16 - the Designer's using all the memory

17 - use Task Manager to kill the Designer

18 - the Server's locked up

19 - the Server's using all the CPU

20 - the Server's using all the memory

21 - use Task Manager to kill the Server

22 - the Server won't start

23 - reboot NT

29 - everyone take a break, I'm going to resynch the database

30 - you need more RAM

31 - the day sure goes by fast when you 23 every few minutes

32 - that doesn't work in SilverStream

33 - I had to write my own

34 - nobody's asked that on the newsgroups

35 - nobody's answered that on the newsgroups

36 - I don't think anybody's tried that before

37 - I told you, 32, but you weren't listening

38 - Fulcrum sucks

39 - the debugger sucks

41 - you can't do that with a SilverStream view

42 - try creating a database view to fool SilverStream

43 - you can't put SQL in a SilverStream where clause

44 - you can't use real SQL any more

45 - the Expression Builder sucks

46 - Uncle SilverStream Knows Best

50 - hosed the server

51 - OK, who 50

52 - oops, I 50

68 - SilverStream isn't for programmers, it's for investment bankers

69 - how can a group that wrote such a cool program write such a bad one

72 - that would be easy with a DataWindow

73 - that would be easy in PowerBuilder

74 - that would be easy in PowerJ

75 - how much does Jaguar cost

78 - SilverStream doesn't work with [fill in product name: e.g., 79]

79 - Oracle

81 - I'm screwed

82 - you're screwed

83 - we're all screwed

84 - maybe that's a bug in the VM

85 - maybe that's a bug in SilverStream

97 - maybe that will be in the beta

98 - maybe that will be in the next release

99 - what a kludge