Some questions about COM

[Tony Johansson]

Hello Experts!

I know this is wrong group to ask I hope someone might know this.
Does anyone know if there exist any newsgroup that is dedicated for the COM
technology?

Those of you who doesn't know the COM technology can stop reading here.

When you use the COM technology are you dependent that the operating system
must support the COM technology?

When you use the COM(DCOM) technology is it possibly to use different
plattforms.
For example is it possibly to have the client on windows and the COM(DCOM)
servern on another plattform then windows.

I reading in a book and here it says "COM is an "industry-standard" software
architecture supported by Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation, and many
other companies.

So for me it seems that the COM technology is not only bound to the
Microsoft.

So does COM(DCOM) support heterogeneous plattforms?


//Tony

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Tony Johansson:

Does anyone know if there exist any newsgroup that is dedicated for the COM
technology?

You might try [comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32], or one of the
Microsoft groups. You should also check out the Mozilla pages (Firefox
uses a COM lookalike component technology) and Bonobo. Don't know
appropriate newsgroups but look/ask around (uh, not here! ;-), but
perhaps place a general question about this in [comp.programming]).

[snipped off-topic questions]

 

[Victor Bazarov]

I know this is wrong group to ask I hope someone might know this.
Does anyone know if there exist any newsgroup that is dedicated for the COM
technology?

Try or and
ask directions. Also visit There is also the whole hierarchy comp.dcom.* but I think it has something
to do with communications, not distributed component object model.

V

 

[Kurt Krueckeberg]

When you use the COM technology are you dependent that the operating

system must support the COM technology?

No, COM is a Component Object Model specification. It uses a interface
specification language called Microsoft IDL (MIDL) to describe component
interfaces. MIDL is an extension to the DCE's IDL, which predated MIDL.

There is also a thin COM runtime library that is used to do things like
create components, delete them, allocate memory in a consistent manner, etc.

When you use the COM(DCOM) technology is it possibly to use different
plattforms.
For example is it possibly to have the client on windows and the COM(DCOM)
servern on another plattform then windows.

I reading in a book and here it says "COM is an "industry-standard"
software
architecture supported by Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation, and
many
other companies.

So for me it seems that the COM technology is not only bound to the
Microsoft.

So does COM(DCOM) support heterogeneous plattforms?

As long as someone has implemented the COM specification/requirements. I
don't know if anyone has.

//Tony

Microsoft has moved away from COM with the advent of .NET. A .NET
implementation for Linux is planned called Mono. See
http://www.mono-project.com/about/index.html.

 

[Deodiaus]

Hello Experts!

I know this is wrong group to ask I hope someone might know this.
Does anyone know if there exist any newsgroup that is dedicated for the
COM technology?

ose of you who doesn't know the COM technology can stop reading here.

When you use the COM technology are you dependent that the operating
system must support the COM technology?

When you use the COM(DCOM) technology is it possibly to use different
plattforms.
For example is it possibly to have the client on windows and the COM(DCOM)
servern on another plattform then windows. Yes.

I reading in a book and here it says "COM is an "industry-standard"
software
architecture supported by Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation, and
many
other companies.

So is DCE, which was a precurser to COM!

So for me it seems that the COM technology is not only bound to the
Microsoft.

As long as you can compile the source code to your COM classes, you are

almost there! In fact, OLE is a binary standard (like an rpc), so it
is not
tied to C++, and neither is COM!

So does COM(DCOM) support heterogeneous plattforms?

Yes, there was an initial strong push of COM/OLE into UNIX platforms by

"Bristol Technologies" in CT. Unfortunately, Micro$oft raised the
licensing
and support costs to a point where BT could not afford them, and BT
went
bankrupt. BT tried to argue in court that by buying the license to the
OLE
standards, it had access to the upgrades, but I don't know the
specifics to
any of those court proceedings nor contracts. It is a shame that M$
played
it that way. Had M$ been more cooperative, COM/OLE would be a much
stronger
and widely supported standard today. Unfortunately, I have not read
articles why M$ played that game, maybe it learned from IBM & AOL that
the
best way to enforce a standard is to destroy it.
This was the same time at which M$ was fighting with Sun over JNI in
Java,
and pushing J++! However, I think I agree with M$ that the JNI and GUI
was
something best left to M$!
Probably M$ was setting the end game to go with .Net & C# !