COM designers were inspired by C++ but their goals were different. They were designing a language-neutral binary standard (aka ABI) and hence took C++'s approac

COM designers were inspired by C++ but their goals were different. They were designing a language-neutral binary standard (aka ABI) and hence took C++'s approach and tweaked it for their specification. Here is an earlier comment of mine with some details - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142987