Rock on. Thanks. Adam Wayne Lehman Web Systems Developer Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Distance Education Division
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:ksuh@;shaw.ca] Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 11:47 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: COM, J2EE & the meaning of life Look into the Java Native Interface. ----- Original Message ----- From: Adrocknaphobia Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thursday, November 7, 2002 9:32 am Subject: COM, J2EE & the meaning of life > Very valid points from the Daves. I can swallow this explanation much > easier than "COM is dead". But it leaves me with the hanging question: > > What do I do if I can't abandon MS products? I mean even XP has COM > under the hood. So far, Office 11 is going to be the first to try a > native web service approach. (btw. Won't this cause security > issues for > home users?) So, until a whole new wave of MS products come out, > what is > the work around? > > I could setup another server running .NET and communicate via web > services, but it doesn't seem to make much sense. Surely not a very > scalable solution either. Not too mention, I'm now splitting my > systemsbetween two architectures. > > My confliction is that Office is a huge product. More than not, > companies have Office installed on all of their workstations. We're > seeing Corel kick up a bit more competition from their deal with > Gatewayand Compaq, but I don't think it's going to have much gain on > Dell/Office hold on the business place. > > Now saying that J2EE cannot interact with Office is a big detractor. > Every company that wants to move to a J2EE solution will still > need to > keep some NT boxes around. There just has to be some workaround in > java.Has anyone come up with some .class files for manipulating office > documents? > > Do you think it would be more stable to write the office > interaction in > c#, and use the CRL to compile into java classes? Technically, I'd > stillbe at the same scenario of having java talk to COM, but maybe > MS's java > will reduce the complications. Although the CRL for Java was not very > good the last time I used it. Has anyone tried this? > > Adam Wayne Lehman > Web Systems Developer > Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health > Distance Education Division > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Watts [mailto:dwatts@;figleaf.com] > Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 5:24 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: RE: ActivePDF (web grabber) and CFMX. (long) > > > COM is NOT being abandoned by MS. Dave and Steve failed to > > back that statement up in the last thread. > > > > Ok. So even is MS comes up with a replacement for COM, you > > basically jumping on the bandwagon of a technology isn't > > even in public beta yet! Waiting for office 11 is not a > > realistic solution for anyone. Upgrading to Office 11 isn't > > either. > > > > Gee upgrade your entire corporation to Office 11, or just > > move you web systems to .NET and continue to use COM. Again, > > if MM doesn't fix this critical issue, they will eventually > > lose the market. > > > > Again, with no proof of COM being axed on MS.com, I have to > > say that your facts have been skewed by MM and Fig Leaf. > > While you may disagree with my statements, I think I provided enough > information to back them up. Nevertheless, I'll respond to this. > > First, Fig Leaf doesn't have a "COM agenda". I stated my own viewpoint > previously, and I don't claim to speak for Fig Leaf as a company about > COM. > I'd be perfectly happy if MS continued to support COM, and provide new > COM > stuff, and if all the COM stuff would work fine in the distant future > with > every new product and platform. I don't like rewriting code any more > than > anyone else does. But the hard fact remains that COM doesn't seem like > it > has much of a future, as far as I can see. > > Second, if you follow Microsoft technologies, you'll be hard- > pressed to > come > to any other conclusion than MS is distancing itself from COM. Every > month, > I read MSDN Magazine, and I follow new MS product releases, and guess > what? > No COM in sight! Now, a year or so ago, there were plenty of > articles on > COM, MTS, COM+, and so on. > > Third, it's worth noting that the vast majority of COM component > providers > (Mabry, SoftArtisans, etc) are working on .NET versions of their > products. > If you want to know the future of a platform, look to the people who > make > their money directly from that platform, and you'll get a good idea > which > way the wind is blowing. > > Fourth, I suspect that the issue of COM support in CFMX just isn't all > that > important to MM, in the big picture. I think that they decided it was > more > important to have CF run on top of Java than to have backward > compatibility > with COM. I think they were right to make that decision (assuming they > did). > > Fifth, Microsoft has a historical record of "obsoleting" their own > software. > I can't remember all of the times they've done this. The most recent > example > is that you won't be able to run Office 11 on Windows 95/98/ME. Sure, > you'll > be able to run your existing COM stuff on your existing platforms, but > that's not much of a future. > > Finally, CF 5 isn't all that good a COM client, either, and while you > can do > stuff with individual, discrete COM objects like ActivePDF, it doesn't > work > well with COM hierarchies, or heavy usage of COM objects (typical > middle-tier COM like you'd use with a well-architected ASP > application).So > it's not like we've lost all that much. > > > Well CF5 didn't have COM issues. It was very easy to > > leverage to power of COM through Cold Fusion, and as > > a result, many of us have integrated COM into our > > solutions. Now, if our COM solutions don't work... > > they we cant upgrade. Plain and simple. Although it > > may be a JAVA issue, it's still a feature that CF lost. > > That MM promised. > > As I mentioned above, I would argue that CF 5 does have serious COM > issues. > If I had a dime for every time I cursed at CF 5's COM support, well, > let's > just say I'd have a lot of dimes. Once, I worked with a COM vendor > briefly > to figure out why their objects wouldn't work well in CF 5 - the > serverwould end up crashing, essentially, because CF didn't > release the > objects > appropriately. Oops! > > And with CFMX, the fact is that some COM stuff works, and other COM > stuff > doesn't - just like with CF 5, except the things that don't work > now may > have worked before, and vice versa. So, there's COM support, and > MM has > met > their obligation in a very real sense. Did you expect them to test > theirCOM > library against every COM object you're using? Did you test your code > during > the beta? I'll freely admit that COM doesn't work as well in CFMX > as in > CF > 5, but that's not saying much, in my opinion. > > > I'd like to know where you read that MS said they were not > > using COM again. > > I don't think there's been a headline on MSDN Magazine that says that. > It's > more a matter of what isn't said. Microsoft likes to push their > technologies > to developers, and lately, there's been very little mention of COM in > that > push (the sole exceptions being stuff like "how to work with your > legacyCOM > in .NET". Draw your own conclusions. > > > I know office 11 will have native web services built it, but > > web services are NOT an acceptable replacement. > > > > COM ----> Web Services ----> Applications > > > > I use COM objects to create web services. Taking out the > > foundation of the architecture doesn't help at all. > > COM is an interface. SOAP is an interface. I don't really see any > difference > between what you can do with one, versus the other. COM is > supported by > Microsoft. SOAP is supported by everybody and their brother. COM isn't > the > "foundation of an architecture" any more than any other interface is. > Just > because it's a binary interface, and SOAP isn't, doesn't make one more > "foundational" than the other. > > > Are you assuming that MS will design a web service > > for every possible office interaction? That's > > impossible. Say you wrote an app using COM to open > > a word document and add the line "COM rules" to the > > third and eighth page of the document. MS will not > > have a native web service to do this for me. I will > > still need to access the application architecture > > to do this... and that is what COM does. It gives > > us access to that architecture, web services can > > only serve to buffer between COM and and you > > applications. > > Again, COM and SOAP are just interfaces. MS can write its software to > expose > itself via whatever interface they choose. I can't say I know how they > plan > to do this, since I'm not currently participating in the Office 11 > beta,but > I think you're seeing a fundamental difference where none exists. You > wouldn't need a separate SOAP interface for every possible Office > interaction, just like you don't need a separate COM object for every > interaction. > > Now, whether these will be "web services" in the currently accepted > meaning > of the term - SOAP over HTTP - is an open question. SOAP is > transport-independent; you could send SOAP messages using interprocess > communication (named pipes) or any other way. Or, maybe, they > won't use > SOAP > at all - these things might be exposed through the .NET interface > mechanisms, whatever you call them. But the fact remains that > there's no > technical impediment to using SOAP for this kind of stuff, just > like COM > is > used now. > > > So is it activePDFs fault for believing MM when they > > said they would have COM support in CFMX? You act like > > MM said a year ago to stop using COM, that it would no > > longer be supported. > > No, it's not ActivePDF's "fault". It is their problem, though. First, > again, > there is COM support in CFMX. You might not be happy with its > performance, > but it's there. Second, if ActivePDF cares about selling its > product to > CFMX > users, they might want to expend some effort to make sure it works > - > that's > what beta cycles are for. Personally, I suspect that few enough CF > people > use their product, and they just don't care enough to expend the > necessary > effort (which could be significant), but I want to stress that > this is > pure > speculation on my part. > > > The bottom line is that the majority of software is > > written on MS standards and C. The best way to utilize > > these technologies is COM. If you want Java to grow in > > popularity, it needs to at least be able to handle COM. > > Mostly for integrating with the millions of corporation > > who use MS solutions. (Exchange, Office, etc.) > > This just goes to show how much one's own situation affects what one > sees. > Java seems to be growing in popularity pretty well without COM > support,actually. I'd venture a guess that the majority of > enterprise systems > aren't > written on MS standards (or C, for that matter). I think that if > CF is > going > to survive, it'll have to work well with these enterprise systems, and > moving in the direction of Java certainly makes that more likely, > in my > opinion. > > And to reinforce a previous point, have you ever tried to work against > Exchange with CF 5? I don't recommend it, really. Exchange > functionalityis > accessed through the Collaborative Data Objects library (CDO), which > requires account impersonation and exposes itself as an object > hierarchy. > > In conclusion, I'm not trying to sell you anything, and if you're > happyusing COM, good for you. I just think that your expectations > are a bit > unrealistic, if you think that Macromedia can do a whole lot for you > with > this. If you depend on COM that much, you may need to stick with > CF 5 > for > those solutions. > > Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software > http://www.figleaf.com/ > voice: (202) 797-5496 > fax: (202) 797-5444 > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting.
