Chapter Two. Comparing COM and .NET

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.NET and COM Interoperability Handbook, The
By Alan Gordon
Table of Contents


If you understand COM already, understanding .NET will not be nearly as difficult as you might think. Both .NET and COM are enabling technologies that make it simple for you to create and use programming language-independent software components that can be used across process and machine boundaries. In my COM classes at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), I would use the analogy of a software bus (the software equivalent of the hardware bus on most computers) to introduce this idea to my students. The idea behind this software bus is that you can "plug" software components into any machine on your network and those components are available for use (subject to security constraints) by any client application on any machine on your network.

The main difference between COM and .NET is that COM was designed primarily for use over LANs. COM uses a proprietary network protocol (DCOM), and, although there were some half-hearted attempts to port COM/DCOM to other platforms, it really only works on the Windows platform. The .NET software bus was designed with platform independence in mind; it was also designed for the Internet. The network protocol that .NET uses (SOAP) was built on the most widely used network protocol on the Internet (HTTP). The .NET software also improves on COM in areas where COM was notoriously weak, particularly in the areas of versioning, security, and ease of use.


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. Net and COM Interoperability Handbook
The .NET and COM Interoperability Handbook (Integrated .Net)
ISBN: 013046130X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 119
Authors: Alan Gordon

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