COM: Where to Go from Here
While mastering COM may take time, take heart! There are many books on the subject including one by Microsoft Press titled, Inside COM. I find it a readable and useful reference. Also, check out The Essence of OLE with ActiveX by David Platt after you get basic COM under your belt. He uses a workbook step-by-step approach that leverages your knowledge of COM and illustrates some key components of OLE and ActiveX. It's an excellent sample source. And, of course, there is always Kraig Brockshmidt's authoritive work on OLE entitiled, Inside OLE. It's big, it's dense, it can be tough reading, but everything is in there.
Since Microsoft is not only preaching COM, but writing applications based on it, you might take a look at Microsoft Transaction Server (based on COM) to get a sense of COM in a commercial context. The Windows 95/NT shell is also written in COM, so any programming books you encounter on the subject will have a lot of COM content.
Also, if you are interested in developing COM objects for non-Windows platforms, or integrating COM with other distributed object architectures, you might find the following articles of interest:
- "OLE on Unix? You Bet!", BYTE Magazine http://byte.com/art/9602/sec19/art1.htm
- "DCOM Links to CORBA Hint of Object Interoperability Trend," Infoworld http://www.infoworld.com/archives/html/960927.corba.htm
- "Microsoft Releases ActiveX SDK for Mac," Internetnews http://www.internetnews.com/textonly/96Oct/1701-microsoft.html
Feel free to visit my web site, www.infusiondev.com for the COMCalc sample source code files, Windows development information, and shareware. o
