I taught ASP.Net in New-York last week. I wanted to bring a book to read in the plane but I wanted a light one (in weight). Have you noticed computer books are just way too thick/heavy?
I browsed through my library and found "Understanding COM+ (1999)" that I actually never read. I was lucky enough to get into Windows programming at the end of the COM days (or it was a misfortune?).
I touched enough of COM to hate it. The infamous 0x8000xxxx errors , E_FAIL (also known as the "oh crap error") and other niceties like the registry being all messed up. Put COM+ on top of this shaky ground and it is even harder.
Not knowing what the fuss was about at the time, combined with reading the wrong #$@#$% book (I can't remember the title), I just did not get it.
After reading "Understanding COM+", my hate turned into "that's a pretty good idea". The .Net ease of programming can now be a real incentive to use some of the services of COM+. Maybe I will change my views and instead of avoiding COM+ at all cost, I may take advantage of it with .Net.
If only I had read that book first. So, yes, it is a 1999 book and it is not a thick book, but the why of things is clearly explained. If you are looking for sample code with QueryInterface all over, you will be disappointed.
If you want to understand what problems COM+ is trying to solve then read this.
I am glad I did.
And BTW, COM is not dead. If you want to host the CLR on some exotic plateform, you have to use a bunch of COM interfaces. But that's another story....
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