[erlang-questions] Erlang is the best choice for building commercial application servers

[Edmond Begumisa]

You're right, COM is still around (though probably only because MS still  
has legacy code using it). Indeed, if you really want to write new  
components using COM you can.

But the thing is, the vast majority of the COM components for business  
applications I came across were written mainly in ActiveX VB (so-called  
"classic" VB), not C++. C++ COM in business software were one-off  
components.

Component development in classic VB was sooooo different from VB.net that  
upgrading them was essentially re-writing them. There was no continuity.  
Sure, you could insist on keeping your old components around but you  
wouldn't be able to extend them to take advantage of new platform  
features. More importantly, there was no guarantee that you could even  
compile them in the future (i.e. no guarantee that your old copy of VS  
would still work on newer versions of Windows).

The mass migrations that occurred around that period had nothing to do  
with fashion. Most teams avoid migrations. Dev teams migrate coz they feel  
they have no choice.

So yes, there was DEFINITELY a feeling of having the rug pulled -- a  
feeling that the new "shiny" thing was being imposed by the vendor. To the  
extent that I recall there were a few petitions floating around.

Anyways, my point was, relying of infrastructure from a big name vendor  
guarantees you nothing in terms of continuity, yet this seems to be a  
common belief amongst managers of business software development teams.

- Edmond -


On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:14:38 +0300, james <james@REDACTED>  
wrote:

>  >There are many businesses that invested heavily in the previous  
>  >iteration of MS development infrastructure (COM-driven Visual Studio 6  
>  >and related tools), and then suddenly had the rug pulled from  
>  >underneath them in 2002 when .Net appeared and they were expected to  
>  >rewrite/migrate much of their code (I worked for such a victim, and  
>  >gathered many now-worthless skills).
>
> When did COM stop working?  When did you have to throw away working COM  
> code because you want to use CLR?  When did an ability to write modular  
> C++ applications not apply on, say, Linux?
>
> You're a fashion victim.  It can happen to anyone, and probably will,  
> eventually.
>
> Suggesting that there was any rug pulling is bizarre; some greener grass  
> turned up over the fence.  Some people will call it progress.
> If you are working with or for people who 'expect to migrate' just  
> because something shiny showed up, that's a problem and it can happen to  
> you with nearly anything.  How long do you think 'cloud' will last?
>
> James


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