Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals, The

COM at Work

Practically speaking, COM objects are used through two basic means: early binding and late binding. When an application makes object references that are resolvable at compile-time, the object is early bound. To early bind an object in Visual Basic, you add a reference to the library containing the object to your project, then Dim specific instances of it. To early bind an object in tools like Visual C++ and Delphi, you import the object's type library and work with the interfaces it provides. In either case, you code directly to the interfaces exposed by the object as though they were interfaces you created yourself. The object itself may live on a completely separate machine and be accessed via Distributed COM (DCOM) or be marshaled ...