Customer Reviews

Hibernate: A J2EE™ Developer's Guide

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There are better books about Hibernate.

The Manning "Hibernate in Action" book is the standard for Hibernate coverage, while the O'Reilly "Hibernate, A Developer's Notebook" is a good quick-and-dirty introduction.

This book is ok - some decent third-party tools ar mentioned, but reads like a heavily-annotated API reference. (Do we really need to see the source for *every* JSP example?)

Skip the WROX "Professional Hibernate" book altogether - it's so full of typos and filler as to be worthless.

I do own all four books - you never can tell when some nugget will present itself.

This is one of the worst introductions to any Java technology I have ever read. More of an API reference than a guide. The author shows a few open source tools for generating objects and DB schemas, then revisits all the info in the Hibernate docs and tutorial. Don't waste your money like I did.

Hibernate is a popular object-relational mapping (ORM) system for Java programmers. As any Java programmer who has worked with a SQL database knows, trying to link Java objects to a relational database is not a trivial exercise. Hibernate simplifies the task by providing an API and a set of tools that can generate Java classes and link seamlessly to a database.

The book starts with an introduction to Hibernate including some details on installation. The author looks at how Hibernate can generate a database schema or it can generate Java classes depending on where you are starting to build your application. XDoclet is discussed with the author pointing out some of the issues with using class annotation. After the introductory chapters, the author gives a good explanation of the details of Hibernate in the middle chapters. The last few chapters look at performance, caching, design issues and other advanced topics. Throughout the book there are many code samples that help to further explain the use of Hibernate.

I do have a few complaints about the book. Although performance is discussed, the cost of using Hibernate on performance is not. I would have liked to see some comparisons of Hibernate versus stored procedures, for example. Also, the weaknesses of an ORM are not discussed. Anyone who has worked with an ORM knows that at a certain level of complexity they start to fall apart and make an application overly complicated. It would have been nice for the author to discuss these issues and at least point towards solutions. Overall, the book serves as a well-written and clearly explained basic introduction to Hibernate.

After the introduction, the book starts by explaining how to write Hibernate mapping files and use a Hibernate specific ANT task to generate Java source.

It the next chapter, the book explains how to generate Hibernate XML mapping files from XDoclet tags in the Java code.

The third chapter explains how to generate both the mapping files and Java source from a DB schema by using a tool called Middlegen.

I think a better approach would have been to have a chapter explaining how to develop everything from scratch (Java source and XML mapping files), then move on to tools that make your job easier by generating the schema, mapping files and/or the Java source.

Also, the book covers Hibernate 2. Hibernate 3 is already out, although, to be fair, there are no Hibernate 3 books in the market yet and most of the tools that integrate with Hibernate (XDoclet, Middlegen, etc) still generate Hibernate 2 artifacts, however, I expect this to change soon.

Mainly this book is for someone who already knows Hibernate and would use this book as a reference and not as a book to learn Hibernate from scratch.

I liked it since it gave some nice examples using Middlegen and XDoclet. I was able to generate all the mappings and POJOs using ant task that used middlegen...

I would recommend this book for someone who wants to pick up few new tricks with Hibernate...

p.s. Used this book costs around 3-4 bucks + shipping... this book definetely worth 6-8 bucks... but i would not pick it up from Barns for $40.

Parts of the book are organized oddly. For example, it gives a complete reference to the mapping files in Chapter 5 without explaining some of the core concepts (e.g., such as how to do one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many mappings). As a result, those items are just words and terms without any understanding of what they mean. Only later in Chapter 7 do we get the explanation for the concepts. Other books, such as the O'Reilly "In a Nutshell" books, are careful to put the reference at the end.

Even then, much of the writing seems rushed without much attention given to coherence. For example, on page 246 it says:

'In this situation, the rule of thumb is that inverse="false" should be set for the side of the relationship with the smallest number of elements changed the most frequently.'

Now think that through carefully and try to decipher what it might mean. Perhaps "smallest" should be "smaller" if there are only two sides? And maybe "most" should be "more" for the same reason. Who knows? The point it the reader shouldn't have to struggle with such core concepts.

I'm happy that I borrowed the book from the library rather than having wasted my own money on it! Addison-Wesley should be ashamed to be associated with this book.

If you are interested in the detailed explanation of the concept and model description get "Hibernate in Action", if you are interested in documentation go to www.hibernate.org. This book is just waste of money and most important time.

In writing Java applications that hook to a backend database, using SQL, there is a well known impedance mismatch. Often, using JDBC, you end up embedding scads of SQL strings into your Java code. And then when your code gets a result from the database, you have to finagle this into some object oriented format.

Iverson talks about using Hibernate to handle the two way object/relational mapping. He gives a balanced critique of its merits vis-a-vis the current alternatives of Enterprise Java Beans and Java Data Objects. Both predata Hibernate by several years and have greater mindshare and market presence.

The book goes into the details of the various Java classes that constitute Hibernate. The text is routine here.

What appears to be lacking is a quantitative comparison of Hibernate with the alternatives. A nontrivial proposition, to be sure. But since databases often compete on the basis of various performance metrics, it would also be useful here. Especially because EJBs are considered by some to be really slow. Leaving aside how obtuse EJBs are to program.

The book's message would be strengthened by some credible numbers.

I bought both this book and Hibernate in Action. Hibernate in Action is much better. This book is less informative and devotes far too much space to source code instead of explanation, insight and tips. I don't recommend this book, as there are better alternatives.