Learning COM still of any use? [closed]

Question

From a person wanting to know more about Windows Internals, reading the book "Windows Internals", and wanting to get into driver development, is learning COM programming a good idea?

How deep should I get into it? Just understand the basics or should understanding be advanced, taking into account the above.

Answer 1

COM doesn't have a lot of value for kernel mode driver development either, but it's potentially useful for user mode drivers. DirectShow is COM, for instance, and there's even a light-weight COM analog used in kernel mode DShow filters.

There's a lot of code out there that is COM, and legacy code takes years or decades to disappear. But more importantly IMO is the fact that a .NET assembly looks like COM objects when used from C/C++, so I think there's still some value in knowing COM if you intend to keep writing C/C++ code.

If you plan to switch to C#, Java, or one of the dozens of other languages-without-pointers that (judging from the questions here a SO) the majority of programmers have adopted, then no, not worth the opportunity cost.