COM v. .net - does that make any sense??

[the_pm]

Does the following statement make sense?

"Company-X (our competitor) currently uses COM which is an older technology. Although they are moving to .net, it will take time."

When I was first given this by an ATM software specialist, I thought someone was trying to compare .com (the extension) to .net (the platform), and I lectured him on how he was comparing two entirely different things. But upon rereading it, it's possible he's talking about some programming platform of which I'm not aware. The reason I think this is possible is up until recently, Company-X used OS/2 almost exclusively as the operating system for its machines.

So going back to that statement, does COM in the context of a programming platform make any sense, or is this statement as completely messed up as I believe it to be?

[ethicaldesign]

COM stands for 'Component Object Model'. It's a microsoft technology usually used to develop reusable components and to allow communication between them (in the context you're probably talking about here he's likely talking about compiled dlls installed on the server that classic ASP talks to using this model). It's been supersceded by the .NET framework now, so he's right it's a bit outdated (though still quite widely used).

If you do a google search for 'Component Object Model' you'll find more information about it.

EDIT: Just realised that you weren't talking about web use here, so the comment about ASP probably isn't relevant. If you do some searching for that phrase you should find out more about it though that will help you to relate to what he might have been talking about specifically.

[ethicaldesign]

Here you go:

http://www.microsoft.com/com/default.mspx

[the_pm]

Beautiful. That's exactly what he needed to know. Thanks :)

[ethicaldesign]

Oops..Just edited my post. If you read up you'll see it. Sorry about that. You beat me to it!