The best thing about it, was that it also supported metaclasses Smalltalk style. So one could go crazy with OO metaprogramming.
Sadly it died with OS/2.
Then there was the other multi-platform OO ABI project from Apple, Sun and IBM, Taligent. Also not that successful.
COM is ok to work with, when done from .NET or now UWP point of view. C++/CX and the recently announced C++/WinRT are still ok, even if a bit more wordy.
The real pain starts increasingly with C++ WTL, C++ ATL, C++ MFC or for the real masochists pure C with COM related macros and the COM IDL compiler.
Then there was that other thing called CORBA, which makes the initial versions of Java EE feel like being in heaven.
I've mostly used COM from .NET, and as you said, it's fairly painless.
At one point, we were having issues with a COM DLL we were using from .NET, so I thought it might be fun and useful to dive in and learn more about COM. I bought Don Box's COM book, and tackled COM in Plain C: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/13601/COM-in-plain-C
It was somewhat less fun than I'd hoped it would be.
I still go back and dip into Essential COM now and again. I bought my copy because I was involved with a project to build a COM/CORBA bridge and needed to get my head around COM's infrastructure. Also back in the day I used to write a lot of code that ran under Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and COM+.
Another interesting book by Mr Box and co-authored by Chris Sells, purely from a historical perspective now as it's fairly ancient, is Essential .NET Vol. 1[0]. Sadly they never got around to writing a second volume.
As a humourous aside, who remembers Don's lecture he did from a bath tub?:
The best thing about it, was that it also supported metaclasses Smalltalk style. So one could go crazy with OO metaprogramming.
Sadly it died with OS/2.
Then there was the other multi-platform OO ABI project from Apple, Sun and IBM, Taligent. Also not that successful.
COM is ok to work with, when done from .NET or now UWP point of view. C++/CX and the recently announced C++/WinRT are still ok, even if a bit more wordy.
The real pain starts increasingly with C++ WTL, C++ ATL, C++ MFC or for the real masochists pure C with COM related macros and the COM IDL compiler.
Then there was that other thing called CORBA, which makes the initial versions of Java EE feel like being in heaven.