I have to agree with IMarshal here. My impression is that the majority of the complexity of COM comes from the framework implementation of a binary standard that lets programs written in different languages communicate using the same standard. While everything that "implements IUnknown" is a COM object, and that sounds simple, it takes more than an implementation of an IUnknown interface to make COM components work. Just think of all the steps that are necessary to *get* an IUnknown interface to an external instance of an object. Find the binary image associated with a particular GUID. Load the binary image. Find the code for the object that needs to be instantiated. Sort out its interfaces and the methods on each interface, etc....
Remember, this is a *binary* standard, and if you're just statically linking the code or even dynamically linking using a hard coded interface, you're kinda cheating. A COM framework is required to do the things mentioned above with reasonable simplicity for the developer. It's also required in order to standardize on binary representations of various parameter types. It can be kind of difficult to pass a string to a process in another memory space. If you pass it by value COM may need to make a copy that the other process can access; if you pass it by reference, COM may need to make a copy that the other process can write to and then need to copy it back (after the COM method call completes) to the appropriate location with appropriate adjustments for possible length changes. Not all programming languages represent strings the same way. The "binary" standard is where all the work comes in. One needs to implement a framework to support the standards and ensure that the standards and the framework are accessible from various programming languages.
I just checked a number of internet dictionaries for the definition of hacker. Some list it as a relatively innocent person with a deep interest in computer programming. Other's list it as someone with little training in computers (!) and some list it as a person with malicious intent. The definitions seem to vary greatly, check them out. I recommend starting at http://www.onelook.com/. Try the "Special Subjects" search as well as the "General Words" search. As a result, it may seem that MTV was using one of the many varied (but apparently valid) definitions of the word "hacker". Seems this word's meaning hasn't been completely nailed down -- either that or there are a lot of bad dictionaries out there.
I haven't seen anybody recite the reason proposed by the experimenter who performed the photon interference pattern "trick". Interestingly, it was his theory that the interference (for the single-photon demonstration) was actually being caused by photons from parallel universes, as I recall.
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Remember, this is a *binary* standard, and if you're just statically linking the code or even dynamically linking using a hard coded interface, you're kinda cheating. A COM framework is required to do the things mentioned above with reasonable simplicity for the developer. It's also required in order to standardize on binary representations of various parameter types. It can be kind of difficult to pass a string to a process in another memory space. If you pass it by value COM may need to make a copy that the other process can access; if you pass it by reference, COM may need to make a copy that the other process can write to and then need to copy it back (after the COM method call completes) to the appropriate location with appropriate adjustments for possible length changes. Not all programming languages represent strings the same way. The "binary" standard is where all the work comes in. One needs to implement a framework to support the standards and ensure that the standards and the framework are accessible from various programming languages.
I just checked a number of internet dictionaries for the definition of hacker. Some list it as a relatively innocent person with a deep interest in computer programming. Other's list it as someone with little training in computers (!) and some list it as a person with malicious intent. The definitions seem to vary greatly, check them out. I recommend starting at http://www.onelook.com/. Try the "Special Subjects" search as well as the "General Words" search. As a result, it may seem that MTV was using one of the many varied (but apparently valid) definitions of the word "hacker". Seems this word's meaning hasn't been completely nailed down -- either that or there are a lot of bad dictionaries out there.
I haven't seen anybody recite the reason proposed by the experimenter who performed the photon interference pattern "trick". Interestingly, it was his theory that the interference (for the single-photon demonstration) was actually being caused by photons from parallel universes, as I recall.
Do you suppose www.gift.com can sue www.poison.com (or vice versa?) because the German word for poison is "Gift"?