I loved Don Box's books on COM and SOAP. But "Essential COM" sure made my brain hurt once it started talking about DCOM. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2

I loved Don Box's books on COM and SOAP. But "Essential COM" sure made my brain hurt once it started talking about DCOM. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432 >Earlier I posted an article by Don Box comparing SOM and COM, and I mentioned that WebAssembly is going through a similar evolution, and might benefit from some of the lessons of COM and SOM: [...] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 >This article comparing SOM and COM was written by Don Box. (first archived in January 1999, but doesn't say when published): [...] >Don Box wrote an excellent in-depth book about COM: "Essential COM": "Nobody explains COM better than Don Box" -Charlie Kindel, COM Guy, Microsoft Corporation. [...] >Here's a synopsis of COM I wrote in response to "Can someone link to a synopsis describing what "COM" is? It's hard to search for. (e.g. microsoft com visual studio)": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 >Glad you asked! One of my favorite topics. ;) >COM is essentially a formal way of using C++ vtables [1] from C and other languages, so you can create and consume components in any language, and call back and forth between them. It's a way of expressing a rational subset of how C++ classes work and format in memory, in a way that can be implemented in other languages. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22282936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22282936 >Apple's OpenDoc based browser, CyberDog, was also quite amazing and flexible, because it was completely component based and integrated with OpenDoc. But that plane never got off the ground, because Steve Jobs rightfully focused on saying "No" and "put a bullet in OpenDoc's head".