Re: GNOME & KOM/OP

[Phil Dawes <philipd parallax co uk>]

Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> 
> > 2) Windows has a lot of big programs which share data and facilities
> > using OLE e.g. office, developer-studio, exchange/outlook etc. What it
> > does not have is lots of small components which can be put together to
> > make big programs. IMHO it is the second that we should be persuing,
> > since the sort of coordination needed for big integrated programs like
> > office is huge (and I don't think we can compete with MS on that count).
> 
> Exactly.
> 
> Now, those "big programs" you mention are actually made up of various
> little smaller COM objects, they are not monolithic huge applications
> in the inside (as one might think from a first look at the code).
> 
> Miguel.

Actually they are. According to a friend of mine (who's a bit chummy
with microsoft) the office programs (word excel etc..) are based on a
huge monolithic C code base. They are slowly being wrapped in COM
components, but these are just facades for the underlying functionality.

Of course this is probably more due to the long standing iterative
history of the code base than any particular strategy from microsoft.
I'm sure if they were to write the applications from scratch today
they'd all be built completely of fine-grained COM components.

Cheers,

Phil.

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________
 Phil Dawes                               |   My opinions are my own
 WWW:    err.. temporarily non-existant   |   and nothing to do with
 Email:  philipd@parallax.co.uk           |      my employer.