Re: Opendoc (was Re: spell checking)

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

Jo Dillon wrote:
> 
> John R Sheets (dusk@smsi-roman.com) spake thusly:
> 
> > I have a little experience with OLE, and would be happy to
> > answer/research any questions about it.
> >
> > John
> 
>   Well, a brief outline of the architecture would be nice. I,
> and I'm sure a number of other people on this list, know virtually
> nothing about it.
> 
>         Jo

Sure thing!  To the best of my current knowledge:

First off, COM (Component Object Model) is the general
specification for  interaction between objects (I believe it's
similar to CORBA).  OLE is Microsloth's windows implementations
of COM.  (Incidentally, ActiveX is a narrower implementation of
OLE that makes it easier to deploy it on a web site, AFAIK.)

OLE/COM is heavily based on the idea of interfaces.  Each and
every COM object (e.g. a GUI control, or container, or service)
uses more than one interface to talk back and forth between its
owner (container, server, whatever).