COM Programming by Example

Microsoft’s COM (Component Object Model) is both the key to Microsoft’s Internet strategy and the technology for interaction among Microsoft’s applications, such as editing a spreadsheet from within a word processor. This work shows how to use COM to create software objects and build applications quickly. It provides an overview of COM technology using real-world examples spanning the entire range of COM techniques such as: using COM API; using Microsoft Foundation Classes for C COM; using ATL (the Actve Template Library) for COM, RPC (Remote Procedure Calls); and COM+ (the C++ wrapper library for COM methods). The companion CD-ROM includes source code for all of the examples and a “SampleWizard” utility which enables the user to insert interactively the examples into applications.

Author Biography

John E. Swanke has worked with COM since its inception. He also has over six years experience with Visual C++ and MFC creating CAD systems, network management, and computer telephony applications. He is an accomplished author having written articles on topics that range from reverse engineering to portability issues. John successfully established his teaching by example method with two MFC titles published in 1999: Visual C++ MFC Programming by Example and VC++ MFC Extensions by Example. He believes in the adage that an example is worth a kilobyte, i.e., each illustrative example is worth four or five times the amount of text it would take to illustrate the same technology. John is currently a program developer at NeuVis, Inc., in Shelton, Conn., and can be reached at jswankep@yahoo.com