Building component software with COM and Eiffel

Component development is a rapidly growing field in modern computer systems construction. Components represent one further step in reusability; from source reuse with object-oriented principles to binary reuse. Achieving binary reusability implies the creation of standards that all the components of the same system must observe. One of the leading standards is Microsoft´s Component Object Model (COM). COM is an object-based technology but doesn´t use the standard object-oriented paradigms due to its binary nature. This new approach involves a new design and also some pitfalls. The paper considers COM as a means to achieve communication between component and presents the enhancements that a language such as Eiffel can add to the development of a COM aware application. These advantages proceed from a combination of the true object-oriented nature of Eiffel and COM´s object-based approach. They lead to better and easier design