30 Facts About RegFree COM

1.

The essence of RegFree COM is a language-neutral way of implementing objects that can be used in environments different from the one in which they were created, even across machine boundaries.

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2.

For well-authored components, RegFree COM allows reuse of objects with no knowledge of their internal implementation, as it forces component implementers to provide well-defined interfaces that are separated from the implementation.

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3.

The preferred method of "inheritance" within RegFree COM is the creation of sub-objects to which method "calls" are delegated.

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4.

RegFree COM is an interface technology defined and implemented as standard only on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Core Foundation 1.

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5.

For some applications, RegFree COM has been replaced at least to some extent by the Microsoft.

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6.

RegFree COM is very similar to other component software interface technologies, such as CORBA and Enterprise JavaBeans, although each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

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7.

Text conversations and Windows messages had proved not to be flexible enough to allow sharing application features in a robust and extensible way, so RegFree COM was created as a new foundation, and OLE changed to OLE2.

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8.

RegFree COM was the major software development platform for Windows and, as such, influenced development of a number of supporting technologies.

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9.

RegFree COM replaced DDE as the preferred form of interprocess communication.

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10.

DRegFree COM extended the reach of RegFree COM from merely supporting a single user with separate applications communicating on the Windows desktop, to activating objects running under different security contexts, and on different machines across the network.

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11.

Components that made use of RegFree COM+ services were handled more directly by the added layer of RegFree COM+, in particular by operating system support for interception.

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12.

RegFree COM+ events extend the RegFree COM+ programming model to support late-bound events or method calls between the publisher or subscriber and the event system.

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13.

Nano-RegFree COM extends the native ABI of the underlying instruction architecture and OS to add support for typed object references.

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14.

Many uses of Nano-RegFree COM define two functions to address callee-allocated memory buffers as results.

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15.

Nano-RegFree COM has no notion of classes, apartments, marshaling, registration, etc.

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16.

Each RegFree COM component exposes its functionality through one or more interfaces.

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17.

All RegFree COM components implement the IUnknown interface, which exposes methods for reference counting and type conversion.

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18.

RegFree COM class is a concrete implementation of one or more interfaces, and closely resembles classes in object-oriented programming languages.

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19.

RegFree COM has support for multiple implementations of the same interface, so that clients at runtime can choose which implementation of an interface to instantiate.

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20.

RegFree COM is a runtime framework, types have to be individually identifiable and specifiable at runtime.

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21.

Each RegFree COM type is designated its own GUID for identification at runtime.

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22.

Above code fragment declares a RegFree COM class named SomeClass which implements an interface named ISomeInterface.

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23.

All RegFree COM objects utilize reference counting to manage object lifetimes.

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24.

RegFree COM objects are then responsible for freeing their own memory when the reference count drops to zero.

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25.

RegFree COM is a language agnostic binary standard that can be developed in any programming language capable of understanding and implementing its binary defined data types and interfaces.

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26.

Registration-Free COM is a technology introduced with Windows XP that allows Component Object Model components to store activation metadata and CLSID for the component without using the registry.

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27.

In RegFree COM, threading is addressed through a concept known as apartments.

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28.

Since RegFree COM has a fairly complex implementation, programmers can be distracted by some of the "plumbing" issues.

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29.

In-process RegFree COM components are implemented in DLL files and registration only allows for a single version per CLSID, they might in some situations be subject to the "DLL Hell" effect.

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30.

Registration-free RegFree COM capability eliminates this problem for in-process components; registration-free RegFree COM is not available for out-of-process servers.

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