The Developer's Resource & Community Site

COM	XML	ASP	Java & Misc.	NEW: VS.NET
International	This Week	Forums	Author Central	Find a Job

Article Outline:

We are currently finalising the article outlines for ASP, XML, Java and ATR but have made a start with the COM(+) Development Series article outlines. However, please feel free to suggest article ideas for iDevResource.com, or send a draft of your article to [email protected].

The COM(+) Development Series

iDevResource.com will be shortly releasing the COM(+) Development Series. We are currently looking for authors to assist in the writing of the articles for this series, and the development series of the other 'IDR' channels which will be announced soon.

Beginner Articles

The beginner articles are aimed at people just starting out with COM+. They will be short and to the point, with the target of getting the reader to use COM+ as soon as possible. The following is a rundown of forthcoming Beginner articles:

• FAQ's
  FAQ's follow our open source publishing ethos of iDevResource.com where we nurture the idea of developers working as part of a community. The iDevResource.com COM+ FAQ will be the most comprehensive available on the net.
• COM+ - the backbone of Windows DNA
  This article will cover how COM+ is really the blood and guts of Windows DNA. Within this article we will outline how the facilities of COM+ provide scaleable, high performance and flexible solutions.
• COM+ Basics - Contexts & Apartments
  This article will cover the very basics of COM+ in stepped, detailed run-throughs.
• COM+ Basics - Enterprise Application Design
  An article giving 10 essential tips on how to write solid, scalable applications using COM+
• COM+ Basics - Inside the COM+ Catalog
  Covering what it is, the object model and what you can do with it.
• COM+ Basics - Creating your first COM+ Application
  The idea of this article is to target a developer new to COM+ and explain to them why they should use it and explain all the settings that they should use.

ByteSize Articles

ByteSize articles are designed to explain a feature in a brief overview. These articles will be fully featured as far as technological content, and give a competent COM/COM+ developer the information needed to feel confident to try out the technology. The initial range of ByteSize articles will cover the basic COM+ topics:

• Transaction Support
• Compensating Resource Managers
• How to generate a COM+ event
• How to generate a queued component
• Object Pooling
• Security
• Queued Components
• Loosely Coupled Event (LCE) / Publish/Subscribe Events

Advanced Articles

As suggested by the title, these articles are intended for the advanced reader. They will be no-holds barred articles covering COM+ in depth, and explain the advantages and consequences of using the technology.

• COM+ Queued Components
  This article will show how queued components can be used to benefit applications that have to run in a disconnected environment. People presently using MSMQ will want to know what's changed, if anything, in relation to their apps - and how they should marry MTS-MSMQ apps in the future.
• The Neutral Threading Model
  This article explains why the neutral model was created and how it compares with the other 'classic' COM threading models. It will also explain how this model affects COM+ synchronization.
• MTS Components and COM+ Components
  Run the reader through how they can convert existing MTS objects into COM+ objects. Already on the mailing lists we've had questions about this topic, and there's a lot of confusion about where MTS has actually 'gone', and what happens at runtime.
• COM+ Event Filters
  One potential problem of a publish-subscribe event system is that the subscriber may be inundated by events. COM+ events filters provide a mechanism to prevent this from happening using filters. There are two ways that filters can be applied: either on the publisher-side where a separate component is able to filter out events before they are generated by the event service, or on the subscriber-side where the event has been generated, but the event service makes a choice as to whether the subscriber should get the event. This article will look at the nuances of each approach and compare them in terms of the code that needs to be written and also in the performance issues.
• Using COM+ Transactions with OLE DB and ADO

Features

The aim of this series is to outline new features in COM+ to give a competent developer an overview of what the technology offers. Articles will be on the following:

• New Features of the COM+ Security Model
  Windows 2000 security essentially fits into two categories: the new facilities to role-based security and the additional features that using Kerberos offers. Most readers will be familiar with role-based access checks through MTS, this article will outline the additional facilities that are present in COM+: the fact that access checks can be performed declaratively on method calls and access to a more detailed list of callers. The Kerberos facilities can also used by COM+ applications and the most important feature is the distributed nature of the security system so that delegation and cloaking can be used for out of process calls.
• COM+ Events
  COM+ introduces a new way to generate events: Loosely Coupled Events, also known as COM+ Events. This article will start by explaining the need for LCE events and then show the basic steps of generating and catching an event. It then steps up a gear by explaining what transient subscriptions are, and how to make them and then explains in detail filters and filter components.
• COM+ Patterns
  In this series we will present the standard design patterns in terms of COM+. The intention is that once a developer has decided that a solution requires certain design patterns, this series will show how to write the code using COM+.
• COM+ Library/Runtime
  A tour of the new COM APIs introduced in COM+.
• Tour of Components Services
  Essentially this article will run through the GUI of component services introducing the major elements, and discussing some of the administrative tasks a user will perform. Will provide basic intro to MMC & snap-ins.