DCOM
DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) is a Microsoft technology that extends COM (Component Object Model) to enable communication between software components across a network. It allows objects to be created and accessed remotely, facilitating distributed computing in Windows environments. DCOM provides features like security, location transparency, and protocol independence for building networked applications.
Developers should learn DCOM when working on legacy Windows-based enterprise systems that require distributed object communication, such as in client-server architectures or multi-tier applications. It is particularly useful for scenarios involving remote procedure calls (RPC), inter-process communication, and integrating COM components across different machines, though it has largely been superseded by newer technologies like .NET Remoting and WCF.