Hello, cgkeller.
Is this a homework or not? I hope not.
If it is a homework, I would say they have (c,t,i,e,x) in common, their difference is that one has (a,i) and the other (d,r). Not bad for two terms of seven letter long to have in common.
If it is not a homework, it would be too pretentious for me to pronounce on these terms.
I find the descriptive def of them in
acceptable as a start that I quote below.
I can only add that I would consider ActiveX and DirectX as the MS' response to Java and OpenGL technologies. How they fare is up to the judgement of individuals. As to the scope, I would say ActiveX is an englobing technology where DirectX technology has taken profit of and largely, but not totally, subsumed to it. In any case, the latter technology has a particular focus of its own. (See, when I say something on these, it is not at all secured.)
Here are their definitions according to the site above.
ActiveX /quote/
A loosely defined set of technologies developed by Microsoft. ActiveX is an outgrowth of two other Microsoft technologies called OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) and COM (Component Object Model). As a moniker, ActiveX can be very confusing because it applies to a whole set of COM-based technologies. Most people, however, think only of ActiveX controls, which represent a specific way of implementing ActiveX technologies./unquote/
DirectX /quote/
A set of APIs developed by Microsoft that enables programmers to write programs that access hardware features of a computer without knowing exactly what hardware will be installed on the machine where the program eventually runs. DirectX achieves this by creating an intermediate layer that translates generic hardware commands into specific commands for particular pieces of hardware. In particular, DirectX lets multimedia applications take advantage of hardware acceleration features supported by graphics accelerators./unquote/
regards - tsuji
