My company is using (component object model) COM for everything. Is this old technology?

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

My company makes electronic products (pcb boards) and I work with software in C++ that talks to the electronics on the baords. Additionally we also have a suite of applications that use Component object model for everything. The GUI's are using MFC and COM is used to talk across Dlls for everything. My question is COM seems like very old technology and they are stuck there because everything uses COM for the last 30 years. Is this a good place to work in and learn? They probably will not change in a while. Do a lot of companies use COM and ActiveX like this or is this because they did not upgrade their control and stuck with the old technology? They only recently started using C++ 11. If they wanted to make a change what could they do?

What I have tried:

I have looked into other technologies. I am not sure what can replace all the elements of COM. They would have to do a lot of work to start over definitely.

Posted 21-Nov-19 15:38pm

nitrous_007

Updated 23-Nov-19 20:20pm

Add a Solution

4 solutions

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

MadMyche · Answer 1 · 2019-11-22T02:05:00

While it is old it is still very common to find it within manufacturing environments.

Where I work we use it as an interface between automated testing machines and various services and databases.

A couple hours away another manufacturer just had to resurrect their old COM and COM+ projects as the handheld devices they use are now Android based instead of Win CE so they lost NET Framework and did not have a time for re-write

So, while it is not state-of-the-art, it is one of those things that just works; and I think it will be around for a long time.

Rick York · Answer 2 · 2019-11-21T19:48:00

Solution 1

As far as I known, no, they do not. COM and ActiveX seem to be rarely used these days. MFC is also rarely used.

It is possible to use DLLs with MFC and without COM or ActiveX. I have done that a lot.

Posted 21-Nov-19 19:48pm

Rick York

Comments

F-ES Sitecore 22-Nov-19 5:15am

> COM and ActiveX seem to be rarely used these days.

Office uses COM, Visual Studio uses COM, most non-dotnet apps you have installed on your machine probably use COM, and even some of the .net ones will use it too, plug-ins from apps to browsers use COM.

Stefan_Lang 25-Nov-19 4:11am

Office uses OLE 2, not COM. I admit I only now found out that OLE 2 itself uses COM. But to say that Office uses COM is still misleading.

Also ActiveX, for all an internet search could turn up, is not built on COM. It only adapts it's API. Plugins in Internet Explorer use ActiveX, not COM. Plugins in other browser use other APIs, e. g. CORBA or XPCOM, or something newer.

VisualStudio - I haven't found any reference about VisualStudio using COM, OLE (2) or ActiveX. It probably uses at least one of them as an API for plugins, but since MS kicked them out in Edge, I wonder if they didn't do the same for VS? I don't know. Do you have a reference regarding VS 19?

As for other apps, why should most of them use an old, badly documented close-sourced API when they could instead use open-source alternatives? Or if they need COM compatibility, why not use the newer APIs of OLE 2 or XPCOM?

I don't think your statements are accurate. If you think otherwise, please provide references.

F-ES Sitecore 25-Nov-19 4:51am

> Office uses OLE 2, not COM

Set oWord = CreateObject("Word.Application") // Word.Application is a COM object
oWord.Visible = True
Set oDoc = oWord.Documents.Add

Set oPara1 = oDoc.Content.Paragraphs.Add
oPara1.Range.Text = "Ok, boomer"
oPara1.Range.InsertParagraphAfter

> If you think otherwise, please provide references.

No need. It does. The code above is using COM. You're talking about document formats, I am talking and code manipulation.

Stefan_Lang 25-Nov-19 7:26am

The OP and me were talking about C++. Here is an article describing how to automate word documents in C++:
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1145676/Automating-Word-using-Visual-Cplusplus-MFC-in-Visu

While the article doesn't state it (not that I've seen); it appears to be using OLE (class COLEVariant might give you a hint).

Yes, some of the function calls are *implementations* of the COM API, but it is OLE nonetheless.

F-ES Sitecore 25-Nov-19 7:36am

"Here is an article that doesn't actually say I am right but it says I am right".

Ok.

Stefan_Lang 25-Nov-19 9:57am

The code in that article uses at least some OLE classes. It doesn't explicitely say that the entire API being used is part of OLE. But it's reasonable to assume this is the case.

Unless you did spot a class being used that is in fact from COM, and not OLE, then I stand corrected. Until then, please stop posting unfounded statements.

F-ES Sitecore 25-Nov-19 10:10am

Set oWord = CreateObject("Word.Application") // Word.Application is a COM object

Stefan_Lang 25-Nov-19 10:26am

I've seen that the first time you posted that code already. But that's not C++. The OP specifically said he is using C++ however, and queried about the viability of using COM in C++.

I say that for all I know, the closest anyone comes to COM _in__C++_ is the OLE API. You can use the COM API instead, but I'm not aware of anyone actually doing that.

The link I provided was an example showing how to perform COM-related tasks in C++ using OLE instead of COM.

F-ES Sitecore 25-Nov-19 10:36am

You said Office doesn't use COM. Word.Application is a COM object. I'm struggling to understand how I can make this any clearer? Just to make sure I'm not behind the times I just fired up oleviewer, expanded Word.Application and, yep, there is is, IUnknown

Stefan_Lang 26-Nov-19 2:23am

Yes, sorry. I should'nt have been so general in my statements. What I am referring to is the C++ API. Whether Office documents are called via COM, OLE, or something else from another language is not of concern to the OP. He asked about COM in the context of C++ only.

KarstenK · Answer 3 · 2019-11-21T20:28:00

The usage of these old technology is vanishing. For a young programmer is it a more risky way. I worked some years with that complicated stuff and now in mobile programming and so can tell from my experience that it is weired stuff which is tightly connected to windows and Microsoft tools. And MS sometimes stops the development of some tools.

I would rate that this topics are more for an seasoned programmer (50+) at the end of his career, who wants to profit from his experiences in the last 20 years. Like me ;-)

Stefan_Lang · Answer 4 · 2019-11-21T21:54:00

Update 2: After some disagreements (see comments) I've finally found a good site to read up on COM: The Component Object Model - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs[^].

While this doesn't directly disagree with anything I've said, it seems that, under the hood, COM is still very much alive in Windows. You should be aware however, that most applications use COM only indirectly, through DLLs and frameworks like OLE (2).

To find alternatives, an internet search for browser plugin technology should turn up some results. I think plugins are the most common application of COM-like functionality nowadays.

Quote:
Is this old technology?

No, it's ancient. The oldest tech of that type I've used myself was OLE 2, back in the 90s. Even then COM was outdated!

Quote:
Is this a good place to work in and learn?

Sure, if you're interested in archeology ...

On a more serious note, no, definitely not. If you happen to have grown up with these techs, it's ok to stay. But learning them just to be able to do that job? Never!

Quote:
They probably will not change in a while.

If they don't change, they'll soon die of old age with the last programmers that even know about COM.

Quote:
If they wanted to make a change what could they do?

1. Spend some effort and find good programmers who are fluent in current software technologies for C++ and related languages, and are willing to work on refactoring dinosaurs into cheetahs.

2. Don't aim for C++11, aim for C++17 and constantly moving up to the newest standard. Aiming for an already outdated standard is what your company did 30 years ago - don't repeat that mistake!

3. It might help to first spend some time to investigate which modern frameworks exist that could help replace the old functionality. I'm no expert in that area, but I have a feeling that web technology might provide anything that you need. Turning your programs into apps that run on web servers and are used via thin clients could transform your whole business. Of course that means you'd need web developers, probably more than one. Well, nobody said this would come cheap ;-)

4. Once you've decided where to go, you need to decide how to get there.

If it's important to keep current users happy, you may need to go slow, and you may need to support both the new and old technologies concurrently. Since you say you have many programs, it's probably best to refactor them one or two at a time.

The alternative would be to create a GUI and communication framework for all of your programs, pack the old core functionality into a DLL, and call these functions from newly developed programs based on this framework. That development would have to take place while maintainig the existing set of programs. If you don't have the capacity for that, you need to hire more people. Of course you could also try using consultants, but IMHO that wouldn't be a good idea: you need the new knowledge to stay in the company.

Quote:
Do a lot of companies use COM and ActiveX

I'm surprised to hear that there are still companies using COM - I would have expected them to move on or die at least 10 years ago. As for MFC, it still sticks around, mainly because it was still omnipresent in all Windows versions up to and including Windows 8.1. ActiveX is in-between. While newer than MFC, it was considered a security risk a long time ago, and shunned by most companies since at least 10-15 years. Besides, it was mostly used in gaming, and the gaming industry is fast to move on to new technologies.

My company is using (component object model) COM for everything. Is this old technology?

4 solutions

Solution 4

Solution 1

Solution 2

Solution 3

Add your solution here

Preview 0