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>I guess I just don't understand the COMcept of it all? If you have had much experience with COM and know the potential benefits of implementing COM, please share your experience with me or point me to a source that will educate me on the topic.
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This is where we have used COM:

We have a system that is written in VFP. One component of this system adjudicates dental claims that have been entered by our operators (claims that have been submitted for reimbursement). It is over 4500 lines of code (the flexibilty of our dental plans is unmatched within the industry (IMHO) which means lots of possibilities and lots of logic and lots of code). The time came when we needed to allow dentists to submit claims electronically and be paid automatically. For several reasons, we decided to write the communications shell in VC++. We have to adjudicate these claims the same way we would have if they were entered here for reimbursement. We decided to take the dental claim adjudication class and add a few methods and properties for the EDI DLL. Any UI code has to be avoided for the EDI DLL. When we finished, we copied the PRG file into a new project and changed the DEFINE CLASS line to include the OLEPUBLIC clause.

Advantages to this:

The calcs have been well-tested. They are used virtually every business day. To re-write in another language would be a nightmare.

When we modify the dental plan choices, we only have to make the change in one spot. Then we copy the PRG file to the new project and add OLEPUBLIC and re-compile. We overwrite the DLL and re-boot the C++ communications module and we have the new code up and running.

Only two advantages? Well, they are BIGGIES! The ability to create a DLL has proven to be a great benefit.

Joe