Re: CompUSA New Policy

[David Botton <David@Botton.com>]

> 
> Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is dying. You might not
> see it now, but wait 2-3 years. The new revolution in software is
> happening in the world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all
> of this will become the new platform where exciting things will be
> developed on (and hopefully Ada will be part of this). And when windows
> die, VB will die with it since that is only place it is used on.
> 

I don't think it is likely that you will see the demise of Microsoft,
Windows, and for sure COM with in the next 2-3 years (perhaps 10 to 20).
What you might see is COM/DCOM running on Linux and other Linux variants
like Unix (actually it already exists on these platforms, see
http://www.softwareag.com/corporat/solutions/entirex/entirex.htm I will
also be posting soon an example of DCOM with Ada95 that will work with
the Linux DCOM setup also at http://www.botton.com/ada) along with many
other Microsoft technologies. If Microsoft ever sees itself slipping or
"losing" to Linux, it can pull an "Internet Explorer" and release half
or more of the OS for free or even as OpenSource and quickly crush the
competition.

I am no fan of Microsoft, but I can tell you that certain aspects of
their technology are here to stay. One of which is COM (ActiveX, OLE, or
whatever the next name they pull out of hat will be).

COM may be a bit complex at start, but once you understand the
principles and the basic skeleton code to produce objects, you find that
you have an exceptional model that produces objects reusable from any
supporting language.

What you get for free from writing to COM specs is worth a note also, a
simple automation compliant COM object is instantly a distributed object
with no change of code. It is easily accessed from Java, VB., C++, Ada95
and just about every scripting language on the planet (including Python
and Perl) on the local machine or off. (While creating COM objects in
Ada95 is still hindered by some compiler issues, using COM objects works
perfect! see http://www.botton.com/ada/os ) There are many other noted
features that come along with COM and I refer you to Essential COM and
Inside OLE second edition as two good sources of information.

I predict you will see in the very near future Win workstations
everywhere running a GUI app written in VB, Delphi or whatever
controlling tons of legacy and new Ada applications through DCOM on just
about any server platform you can imagine (including Linux).

Imagine the simplicity of sending a simple document to the CEO of a
large corporation in the middle of crisis at his manufacturing plants
with DCOM objects embedded in the document illustrating current
production levels and statistics updating in front of his eyes from
servers and equipment (not just Windows based!) all over the globe. Not
just a dream, I have built systems like this more then once and it
works.

The number of COM/ActiveX objects already available for reuse is beyond
belief. The amount of legacy code being repackaged in to COM objects is
mind boggling and that is nothing compared to new code that is taking
advantage of COM.

David Botton