After two years of intense focus on managed code, I had the pleasure of doing a time warp back to COM+/C++ as part of the interoperability sections I am creating for our new book and a production solution that is happily running on COM+. The joy and excitement exceeded the frustration of getting back into C++/ATL and I have realised that COM+, Component Services or Enterprise Services, or whatever name it is currently known as, is far to powerful to be forgotten when designing solutions of today and tomorrow.
Some facts I listed on my scratch pad: Interoperability between .NET and COM+ is seamless, functionality of COM+ is immense, there are huge business solutions “humming” away on COM+ and Microsoft recommends new solutions to use .NET, not COM+. Well, I strongly disagree with the latter and agree with the rest. If we take the approach of using the right technology for the right task and interoperating with existing, rather than migrate “working code”, then COM+ will be with us for a long, long time.
I am now an evangelist of both technologies and if that means I have joined the dark side because of it, then the COM+ Siths rule!