COM, again

[Stefan Ram]

To communicate with an externally-supplied Microsoft®
COM component, there are several options:

- Jacob

- Jawin

- org.eclipse.swt.ole.win32

- JNI and custom code

- Win32 interface code (C, C++) communicating with
the COM-component via COM and with the
Java application via another interface (see below)

- .net interface code (C#), instead

- something else?

»Another interface« might be

- a socket

- a database

- the filesystem

- Runtime.getRuntime().exec( "cominterface command" )
(doing this for every COM call)

- something else

I have heard that some people had some difficulties with
Jacob/Jawin, e.g., when using COM events IIRC. Does anyone
know anything about the current (that is, 2011) state of
these projects or similar projects, e.g., whether some of
them are still well-maintained? Or whether one of them today
is clearly better or more field-tested than the other?
Or is known to be relativly bug-ridden or bug-free?

Yes, I could as well write the whole application in C++ or
C#, but I prefer Java for most of the application, but need
to access an externally-supplied COM component.