Talk:Component Object Model

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article is part of WikiProject Microsoft Windows, a WikiProject devoted to maintaining and improving the informative value and quality of Wikipedia's many Microsoft Windows articles.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on WikiProject Microsoft Windows's importance scale.
A summary of this article appears in Internet Explorer.

Contents

[edit] JavaScript vs JScript

"Other libraries and languages that are COM-aware include the Microsoft Foundation Classes, VBScript, Visual Basic, ECMAScript (JavaScript) and Delphi."

JScript is more technically accurate than Javascript, since COM uses Microsoft's implementation and extension of ECMAScript and not Netscape's.

[edit] COM lite

There's a "lighter" way of using COM too. According to the COM Specification (draft version 0.9 from October 1995, which doesn't seem to be available from Microsoft anymore, but you can get it from this archive.org page), COM objects don't need to be instances of COM classes or CoClasses (see chapter 3.6 of COM Specification). As long as an object supports at least one COM interface, it can be called a COM object. Its class doesn't have to be publicly available for instantiation. So COM interfaces can be used as an efficient means of communicating with any kind of applications or DLLs. It's object-oriented unlike plain vanilla DLL API functions. Many applications use COM interfaces internally. Did you know that Borland Delphi objects' interfaces are COM-compatible by default, even if you don't bother dealing with CoWhatever? COM interfaces are a simple but very powerful concept.

Visual Basic does this too; it implements IDispatch-based interfaces for all your objects, even those that you don't export. Perhaps VB uses a private, internal ClassFactory for these, but it probably doesn't. Shinobu 04:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It's all well and good redirecting from OCX to COM, but nowhere in this article does it tell me what an OCX file actually is? A DLL that implements some interfaces?

An OCX control, or OLE custom control is essentially a coclass implementing the intefaces necessary to enable applications that can embed controls via those interfaces, to embed objects of this class as a visible, interactive control. Usually their implementation is housed in a dynamic link library with the .ocx extension. Shinobu 04:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where are the lists of standard COM libraries so that you can actually use them for developement?

I've been looking at writing HTA (HTML Applications). These are basically applications made by running a scripted web page locally completely outside of the security sandbox.

It's a cool way to program because, as PHP programmers have found, there's no easier way to generate a user interface than to spit out HTML. And DHTML is a cool way to script a user interface.

But since JavaScript doesn't have libraries for system access, you need to link to COM libraries at run time for every nonweb like thing you want to do.

This should be easy, since Microsoft has supplied COM libraries for everything, and always has.

But just try to find documentation of WHAT COM Libraries exist, what the interfaces to them are, what versions shipped with which version of Windows. THERE'S NO DOCUMENTATION!

Add to that the fact that COM objects don't have reflection and you have a nutty situation.

It's like being a plumber, except that you can only order pipe fittings by number, and you're not allowed to see the catalog. Oh and the catalog numbers are 64 bits long. -- wrong: actually they're 128 bits

Can anyone help me out here?

CafeAlpha@nightstudies.net

Perhaps you can install the Platform SDK? It's a heavy download, but it contains all you ever wanted to know about Windows programming. Shinobu 04:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It's really a bit inaccurate to say that .NET is a replacement of COM. Not only does .NET do a lot more than COM, COM+ is still very much alive and well, and Microsoft are still encouraging its use in enterprise applications. Writing COM+ objects in .NET is a common way to do it, so the two technologies are more complementary than competing. ShaneKing 12:42, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So edit the article :-) We need severe technical info here - David Gerard 00:09, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)

can someone write a dumbed down section? the first paragraph reads like an alien language.

I've added "In software engineering" to the intro, so you know after three words that it is in fact an alien language ;-) I couldn't see how else to simplify the explanation in the intro. It really is a bit esoteric for the non-geek, but I hope the "In software engineering" up front is adequate warning - David Gerard 11:21, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ActiveX

I'm unsure whether ActiveX is a synonym of COM. Isn't it -- like DirectX -- based on COM? --GatesPlusPlus 11:26, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yup, ActiveX is just another technology using COM, right? What redirect it here? --minghong 08:37, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Has since been fixed. Shinobu 08:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More malicious uses of ActiveX over legitimate uses?

I read or heard somewhere that there are more bad uses of ActiveX rather than legitimate uses. Is this true? -x42bn6 8 July 2005 04:15 (UTC)

No. ActiveX is the same as Automation. It's a software componentry system that is used extensively by your system, and by a lot of software people use daily. ActiveX is just a specification of how software components interact with each other. This is not intrinsically good or bad. However, what is bad, is letting untrusted native software loose on your computer. So if your browser asks you to install an ActiveX control, or Firefox plugin, decline. What can be done in webpages using ActiveX controls and Firefox plugins can usually be done with Java applets, and these can be properly sandboxed, making them (barring bugs in the Java VM) completely safe. So if a website owner decided to use an ActiveX control or Firefox plugin instead, you have a very good reason to be very suspicious indeed. Only install ActiveX controls, Firefox plugins, or any software for that matter, if you fully trust the source. Shinobu 04:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ActiveX text

The text looks like its taken directly from MS:

What is Active-X


What is ActiveX?

ActiveX is a set of technologies from Microsoft that enables interactive content for the World Wide Web. Before ActiveX, Web content was static, 2-dimensional text and graphics. With ActiveX, Web sites come alive using multimedia effects, interactive objects, and sophisticated applications that create a user experience comparable to that of high-quality CD-ROM titles. ActiveX provides the glue that ties together a wide assortment of technology building blocks to enable these "active" Web sites. What Are Its Primary Benefits?

   * Active Web Content with Impact that will attract and retain users.
   * Open, Cross-Platform Support on Macintosh®, Windows® and UNIX® operating systems.
   * Familiar Tools from a wide assortment of tools and programming language vendors, including Visual Basic®, Visual C++®, Borland® Delphi®, Borland C++, Java, and Java-enabled tools. Developers can use what they know and be productive immediately.
   * Existing Inventory of ActiveX controls available today for immediate use by Web producers.
   * Industry Standards, with built-in support for key industry and de-facto marketplace standards, including HTML, TCP/IP, Java, COM, and others.

What Are Its Elements?

ActiveX includes both client and server technologies.

   * ActiveX Controls are the interactive objects in a Web page that provide interactive and (UTC)user-controllable functions and hence enliven the experience of a Web site.
   * ActiveX Documents enable users to view non-HTML documents, such as Microsoft Excel or Word files, through a Web browser.
   * Active Scripting controls the integrated behavior of several ActiveX controls and/or Java Applets from the browser or server.
   * Java™ Virtual Machine is the code that enables any ActiveX-supported browser such as Internet Explorer 3.0 to run Java applets and to integrate Java applets with ActiveX controls.
   * ActiveX Server Framework provides a number of Web server-based functions such as security, database access, and others.

What Can It Do?

ActiveX brings innovation and interactivity to the Web. Because it is supported by many different languages and tools, it enables developers with varied backgrounds and expertise to bring their creativity to the Web. Based on a refinement of the existing COM standard already known by thousands of developers, it can leverage the knowledge and work of the development community without a steep learning curve. And because it is a third-generation technology with extensive third-party support, it provides the richest development platform for both Internet and intranet Client/Server applications available today. ActiveX takes the most creative and innovative software development efforts and enables them to work together seamlessly in a Web site. With thousands of these software components already existing, an exciting collection of interactive objects is available for immediate use by Web producers. Why Is It Important?

ActiveX makes it fast and easy for developers and Web producers to create unique, interactive Web sites that will make the Internet fundamentally more useful and productive. Web producers don't have to start from scratch and build all the parts of their interactive Web site by hand, because there are already more than 1,000 reusable controls available in the market. And because ActiveX can be used with a wide variety of programming languages from dozens of vendors, developers and Webmasters can make use of their current expertise to more quickly create compelling content. They can also accommodate a wide range of users, as ActiveX will be supported on multiple operating system platforms. How Does It Compare with Java?

ActiveX provides a standard mechanism to extend any programming language, including Java. ActiveX extends the capabilities of the Java language by allowing Java developers to integrate their applets with the richness of ActiveX. ActiveX ties Java applets together with objects created in other languages, so that Java programmers can link to ActiveX controls directly from their Java programs. By the same token, objects written in other programming languages from multiple vendors can link to Java applets. ActiveX is the glue that ties them all together, delivering the most powerful Web technologies in an open, integrated platform. By providing a common way to extend and link programming languages including Java, ActiveX maximizes developers' resources for interactive Web development. See ActiveX and Java for more information on extending Java with ActiveX. Who Supports It?

Small, medium and large software companies currently create ActiveX controls, including companies such as Borland, Oracle and Sybase/Powersoft. As a result of their work, there are more than 1,000 existing ActiveX controls available for use today by Web producers. In addition, 14 companies who create Web design and development tools have built ActiveX support into their products, allowing their customers to both create and make use of ActiveX controls in their programs. Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports ActiveX, and Microsoft provides the ActiveX plug-in for Netscape® Navigator®, enabling the broadest range of Internet users to view ActiveX-enabled Web pages. Where Does It Run?

ActiveX is currently supported on the Windows operating system. Microsoft is working with Metrowerks to support ActiveX on the Macintosh platform, and is also working with Bristol and Mainsoft to support it on UNIX platforms. Developers who write ActiveX controls and other ActiveX objects will be able to reach the widest possible user audience with this cross-platform solution.

so it is probably a copyvio and would need to be reworked... --RN 07:30, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] DLL Hell

Because the location of each component is stored in a system-wide location (the Windows registry), there can be only one version of a certain component installed. Thus, COM seriously suffers from DLL hell, where two or more applications require different versions of the same component. Wrong. That is decision of component developer if he wants to register new component version under old version name, and it is wrong decision if components are not compatible.

The point is "COM makes wrong decisions more destructive by requiring system-wide registry of registered components"
The point is nothing like "COM is defective and cannot be used to make solid solutions". --tyomitch 09:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

F.e. typicall windows installation have MS XML 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 installed and working together just fine. Also COM have "Component Categories" http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnesscom/html/componentcategories.asp feature which allows to not hardcode used component names in application.

Additionally, since COM uses the registry intensively, it is sensitive to registry corruption. And most of the software are sensitive to file system corruption. What the point?

I don't know. Go ahead and fix it if you like. --tyomitch 09:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no DLL hell in COM, since interfaces and coclasses are referred to using their GUIDs, not names, and the DLLs themselves can be located anywhere in the system. Thus, at the very least, the claim made by the article that "because the location of each component is stored in a system-wide location (the Windows registry), there can be only one version of a certain component installed" is outright wrong - and it is the only claim that is made in the "DLL hell" section, which is why I removed it altogether. Yet it was promptly inserted back. Care to explain what "DLL hell" with regard to COM mean, then? -- int19h 07:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Easy - if you have OOActiveXControl v2 installed on your system, then you install OldApp 2001 and it registers OOActiveXControl v1, applications that depend on interfaces and classes in OOActiveXControl DLL v2 will break when they can't find them. There's also the case of poorly written components that change behaviour between versions without incrementing interface names, etc. You can't say that it is immune to DLL hell, but you could probably reword a lot of the text in there to make it clearer instead. MatthewMastracci 22:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The breakage will only occure if you overwrite the OOActiveXControl.2 DLL with OOActiveXControl.1 DLL. This may happen when installing components into SYSTEM32 folder, but it is widely recognized to be bad practice, and COM certainly does not enforce it - the application could just as well put the DLL into its own folder and register it from there. As for poorly written components that change behaviour for existing interfaces - well, they aren't strictly COM-compliant, since COM reference guide specifically says this is forbidden. It's not in any way unique to COM, either - the same problem exists in Java/.NET land; so I don't think that the name "DLL hell" is in any way applicable here. -- int19h 07:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Your points are fair enough, but take a look at the DLL hell page:
DLL hell as described above was a very common phenomenon on pre-Windows 2000 versions of Microsoft operating systems, the primary cause being that the operating system did not restrict DLL installations. Application installers were expected to be good citizens and verify DLL version information before overwriting the existing system DLLs. Standard tools to simplify application deployment (which always involves shipping the dependent operating system DLLs) were provided by Microsoft and other 3rd party tools vendors. Microsoft even required application vendors to use a standard installer and have their installation program certified to work correctly, before being granted use of the Microsoft logo. The good citizen installer approach did not mitigate the problem, as the rise in popularity of the Internet provided more opportunities to obtain non-conforming applications.
If people can improperly register or write shared components, this leads to DLL hell. It doesn't really matter if it violates COM specs - if it can happen with the dumbest of users and/or programmers, it can happen. We can't really take out the section on DLL hell, but you can put in mitigating factors like COM spec violation, SxS DLLs, local registration, etc.. MatthewMastracci 21:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the laymen's version of this article?

This article may be great for what it is, (or not, I don't have the expertise to say), but isn't an encyclopedia suposed to explain things to people who don't already understand the subject matter?

I am a programmer of sorts, mostly a self-trained hack, but fairly skilled. But I come from the unix world mostly. I sure wish there were a wikipedia article that would explain some of microsoft's alphabet soup of technologies to people who don't already know most of it. I can click links all day in these wikipedia articles, from COM to OLE to WinFX to .NET, but they all seem to link back to each other and none of them explain it to non wondows-experts.

--Headybrew 11:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I think the opening sentence already describes what COM does / what it's for, and if you want technical or historical details, you can read those sections. Is there any specific part of the article that is hard to understand? Shinobu 03:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] .NET performance

"Also, a COM component should theoretically always have better performance than a matching managed .NET component."

Is this actually true? In theory .NET is faster, since it doesn't require every function call to be virtual, and doesn't need to constantly AddRef/Release object references.

It does the same and 10 times more, it's just hidden from the programmer. How the hell do you think it manages reference counting, if not with functions similar to AddRef/Release?
Pretty simple, it doesn't use reference counting at all, but a tracing, compacting, generational garbage collector. -- int19h 18:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This article needs some cleanup, especially the History section, which tends to repeat itself quite a bit. Also, I deleted the line "Also, a COM component should theoretically always have better performance than a matching managed .NET component" because it's a controversial and unsubstantiated claim. Depending on who you talk to, some people will say that JIT compiled langauges should theoretically be faster than natively compiled languages because the JIT language has the oportunity for machine-specific optimizations. Without any citation, it's just noise and doesn't really add anything to the article.12.34.246.4 22:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] COM Obsolete?

COM has a sordid history. It has left a trail of technology that will be with us for years to come. It all started when it was decided that it would be a good idea were it possible, for example, to embed a spreadsheet inside a word processor document such that updates to the spreadsheet would automatically update the document. At the same time, software componentry as a solution to the code reuse problem was very promising. Programmers were expected to master incantations of environment, instantiation, interface probing, graceful degradation of function in the event the latest object version is unavailable, reference counting, and so on and so forth. After all those things are done, there is still the minor detail of slaying the dragon the program one is trying develop is supposed to slay. What is missing from COM is ease of reflection that allows a programmer to make runtime decisions based on what is on offer in a COM library. That is what the .NET Framework excels at and why COM is the past and the .NET Framework the present and future.--151.200.244.58 18:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

COM has a support of something similar to what we call "Reflection" in .NET. Its called TypeLibraries. COM from the begining supported this concept of enquiring the "type" of a object, provided the object supported ITypeLib/ITypeInfo interfaces. Also COM supports the popular IDispatch to implement Automation in components which make them accessable in scripting languages. 72.78.10.98 10:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Vijay Ravi

[edit] Object diagrams

When visualizing COM objects, one often draws cute little diagrams like:

   ______________________
  |      ____________    |
  |     |            |   |
O-+-----| InterfaceA |   |
  |     |____________|   |
  |    ________________  |
  |   |  ____________  | |
  |   | |            | | |
  | O-+-| InterfaceB | | |
  |   | |____________| | |
  |   |  ____________  | |
  |   | |            | | |
O-+---+-| InterfaceC | | |
  |   | |____________| | |
  |   |________________| |
  |______________________|

Since these are so commonly used, wouldn't it make some sense to have an example in the article? Not as horrible ASCII art of course, but as SVG? Shinobu 03:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Note: you also often see things like this, e.g. in Microsoft's documentation

                     O
               ______|_
              |        |
InterfaceA O--|        |
              |        |
InterfaceC O--|        |
              |________|

The top circle represents IUnknown. Shinobu 07:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate category for COM

Looking at the number of Wikipedia articles that can be categorized under COM, how about creating a "Component Object Model" category like .NET has? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xpclient (talk • contribs) 09:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)