A.3. Platform Impedance
This section describes the facets of the COM and Win32 platforms that make interoperation with Java difficult. Table A-1 summarizes the chief sources of platform impedance. The COM approach is explored in more detail in §A.4, and the Win32 approach is discussed in §A.5. This is obviously not a complete introduction to these complex technologies. For more on COM see [Box98]; for more on Win32 see [Ric99].
| Concern | Java Approach | Win32 Approach | COM Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loader architecture | Class loaders | Explicit paths | Registry lookup |
| Metadata/Type info | Extensive | Minimal | Partial |
| Object lifecycle management | Implicit, GC | Explicit and ad hoc | Explicit and reference-counted |
| Type discovery |
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