>>>>I'm a complete newbee at this, so what is ISAPI and ADO?
>>>
>>>Forget to answer one... ADO is Active-X Data Objects... this is a COM server that you can acess, which is designed to access data. There have been lots of threads about ADO on the UT if you want to search them out.
>>>
>>>BOb
>>
>>I'm still not sure what a COM server is. I got the feeling from other posts that it's something you do to an app to make it run on the web. Am I close?
>>
>>I hate alphabet soup...
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>-Michelle
>
>COM is Microsoft's spec for a common object architecture that allows tools like VFP to instanciate and control 'servers' written in VFP or any other tool that knows how to write them. COM stands for Component Object Model.
>
>There are other standards, like the one promoted by the Object Management Group (OMG): CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). VFP does not, and probably never will have the abililty to create CORBA objects. It's a politics thing.
>
>
>A COM server is a dll or exe that has been designed to let another application control it, as opposed to regular apps that a user controls interactively. You can write a COM server in VFP and compile it as a dll, and then call that program and run its methods from another language (VB, VBScript, JavaSCript, whatever).
>
>Many web apps are written to take advantage of COM objects, for a lot of reasons. Most importantly, it allows you to write the bul of your logic in the language of your choice, and then just call your object from your ASP or ISAPI web app.


Ok... Makes sense. Sounds kind of like OLE automation.

Thanks,

-Michelle