I vaguely remember those spinning balls in Windows 2000, XP etc. to know your DCOM components were working. Are they still a thing? We did the 3 tier DNA thing, using VB because in VB it was simple, in C++ it looked hellish.
VB was denounced as infantile nonsense fit only for the GUI by us C++ jocks, until we'd done COM in both C++ and then in VB - then we realised what a huge favour VB was doing in insulating you from so much of the complexity. Sure there were Don Box-level things you could probably only do in C++, but for us working stiffs doing business apps it was like day following night.
>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: [...]
>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)":
>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.
>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".
