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What are components

My understanding of it :

1. A compiled application that doesn’t change.
2. A plug-and-play to other applications
3. The client doesn't need to know how it is implemented in order to interact with it.

COM Components Requirement:

Components Must link dynamically, must hide/encapsulate the details of how they were implemented.

The COM strives to give application the ability to hot-swap a component during runtime, which requires the ability to dynamically link components together.

Encapsulate the COM components as you will need to unload the old one, and plug in the new one in the same manner as the old one.

a client is a component taht uses another component. A client connects to another component through a interface.

1. can be EXE.
2. can be DLL.

COM Specification at MS

1. COM’s publication scheme, clients can dynamically find the components they need to use (CLSID?).
2. Transparetnly located on a remote network (Through RPC → DCOM service?)
3. COM has an API, the COM library which provides component management services that are useful for all clients and components. (What are COM libraries)