Do you enjoy writing software, except for the database code? Hibernate:A Developer's Notebook is for you.

Database experts may enjoy fiddling with SQL, but you don't have to--the rest of the application is the fun part. And even database experts dread the tedious plumbing and typographical spaghetti needed to put their SQL into a Java program. Hibernate: A Developers Notebook shows you how to use Hibernate to automate persistence: you write natural Java objects and some simple configuration files, and Hibernate automates all the interaction between your objects and the database. You don't even need to know the database is there, and you can change from one database to another simply by changing a few statements in a configuration file.

Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook walks you through the ins and outs of using Hibernate, from installation and configuration, to complex associations and composite types. Two chapters explore ways to write sophisticated queries, which you can express either through a pure Java API, or with an SQL-inspired, but object-oriented, query language. Don't let that intimidate you though: one of the biggest surprises in working with Hibernate is that for many of the common real-world application scenarios, you don't need an explicit query at all.

If you've needed to add a database backend to your application, don't put it off. It's much more fun than it used to be, and Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook shows you why.

Here's what a few reviewers had to say:

"I'm sitting on an airplane after finishing Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook. It's rare to find a book on a new Java technology that you can get through on a domestic flight. That this notebook effectively and succinctly tackles object-relational mapping makes it, and Hibernate, even more impressive. Many books in this category would need to be checked luggage. With this book, you travel first class." --Mike Clark

"A simple persistence framework deserves a simple book, and this one delivers. The examples are well described and easy to understand, yet sophisticated enough to demonstrate Hibernate in a real-world context. Jim, I'm a new fan." --Bruce Tate

About the new Developer's Notebook Series from O'Reilly: Developer's Notebooks are a new book series covering important new tools for software developers. Developer's Notebooks stress example over explanation and practice over theory. They are about learning by doing; by experimenting with tools and discovering what works. "All lab, no lecture," with a thoughtful lab partner to guide the way.

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Hibernate is a lightweight, high performance object/relational persistence and query service for Java. Hibernate allows you to work easily and efficiently with information from a relational database in the form of natural Java objects following common Java idiom - including association, inheritance, polymorphism, composition and the Java collections framework

Written by James Elliott, Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook is an excellent must-own book for anyone interesting in learning more about Hibernate. James does a great job in explaining the topic at hand in a clear and concise manner. All the concepts are explained via examples, which make it easy to follow and learn.

Staring with installation and the setup of your development environment, the book walks you through examples where you build on a small application as you progress through the book learning the subtleties and nuances of Hibernate. This book is extremely readable and is small enough to read cover to cover in a day. My pattern for reading technical books involves reading (or skimming) the book cover to cover before doing a deep dive and working through all the code examples. I found the examples easy to follow and they did a great job in building on the concepts of Hibernate.

I know that Hibernate founder Gavin King and Christian Bauer, a member of the core Hibernate developer team have just finished their new book Hibernate in Action due to ship in August 2004. I am really looking forward to that book and have pre-ordered that book. Having said that, I still highly recommend this O'Reilly book.

I had read a couple of articles on Hibernate and had played with some simple examples but this book gave me all the knowledge and tools to start using Hibernate in a real application. This is a really well written, concise guide to Hibernate and well worth the purchase price. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about Hibernate and is a great first Hibernate book.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

A great beginning!Jun 24, 2004
By Andrew J. Wellman
Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook is a great book. While the book does not cover O/R Mapping or Hibernate from ALL angles, but how could it in less than 200 pages? I bought this book hoping to get my feet wet so that I could start working with Hibernate right away and work my way into the rest. That is exactly what this book provides.

The examples in the book are easy to understand, evolve well over the course of the book, and teach useful tips such as configuring Ant to work with Hibernate and how to utilize the mapping techniques. What's more is the author's style is easy to follow and neither to wordy nor too watered down. The book has a good conversational style -- as the title implies developer to developer. Most importantly of all, this book is not intimidating. Instead of wading through 100 pages of introduction, this book gets after the business of learning Hibernate right away! Many technology books try to be everything to everyone and I find myself bored before I get to the meat of the book. That's not a problem with this book.

If I had one to pick on small issue, I would like to have seen the core topics (especially collection mapping techniques) covered in more detail and less time spent on topics like custom types. As I pointed out earlier, my goal was to get a good basis to start working and cover the advanced topics later; Custom types are not something I am ready to "jump" into right away.

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:

Terse, complete walkthrough for O/R expertsSep 26, 2004
By Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author"
At around 150 pages this is not a 'for dummies' book. It's a quick walkthrough of the essential features of Hibernate for those that already understand the basic principles of O/R mapping layers. It starts with installation, then goes quickly into the code in a what/how format. What do I want to do. How is that done. Over and over until all of the essential features of Hibernate are covered.

I like the voicing of the book, which is to treat the reader with respect. I like that there are not a lot of screenshots. And I particularly like the brief but thorough writing style.

I recommend this book to anyone familiar with O/R mapping layers but who needs an introduction to Hibernate.

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