What is the best way to create a COM component today?

Question

I want to create a deskband COM object for my pet project. I don't have any experience with COM and a quick search revealed that ATL will simplify things. I was wondering if there are any better ways to create a COM component today. Better in the sense less boiler plate, use of C# instead of C++ and any other things you may think of.

Answer 1

If deploying or relying on a .NET framework installation on the client machine is not an issue for you, than C# is much easier than C++ (although you will probably have to redeclare interfaces, IID, etc... in C#, using P/Invoke ). If reducing dependencies is an issue, than C++ with ATL is better.

Answer 2

Just create it in C# and expose as a COM component, see this guide:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zsfww439.aspx

Answer 3

The only reason I would consider C++/ATL is if I were connecting to any C/C++ libraries. Other than than I can't think of a strong reason to use C++ over C# (assuming your skill level is equivalent in both).

Answer 4

I can only recommend C++ in conjunction with Microsoft's ATL library.

I used some code generation tool written in C++ that helped me to get rid of quite a lot of boilerplate code. This tool generated code that produced more C++ friendly interfaces (like the code that gets generated in the tlh/tli files when you #import a type library in Visual Studio. My code generator produces similar code, only for COM servers.

If you are interested, send a mail to DerTopper at web dot de. Put something like "COM code generator" in the subject line, so that you won't fall through my spam filter.

Regards, Stuart