Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

-- From the Forward by LINDA DEMICHIEL Specification Lead, Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 and Java Persistence Sun Microsystems

Persistence, the ability of data to outlive an instance of a program, is central to modern applications. Hibernate, the most popular Java persistence tool, provides automatic and transparent object/relational mapping so it's a snap to work with SQL databases in Java applications. Hibernate conforms to the new EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence 1.0 standards.

Java Persistence with Hibernate explores Hibernate by developing an application that ties together hundreds of individual examples. You'll immediately dig into the rich programming model of Hibernate 3.2 and Java Persistence, working through queries, fetching strategies, caching, transactions, conversations, and more. You'll also appreciate the well-illustrated discussion of best practices in database design, object/relational mapping, and optimization techniques.

In this 2nd edition of Manning's bestselling Hibernate in Action, authors Christian Bauer and Gavin King -- the founder of the Hibernate project -- cover Hibernate 3.2 in detail along with the EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence 1.0 standards.

What's Inside:

--Authoritative source for any developer using Java with SQL databases.
--Covers the latest major Hibernate version in great detail
--Explores the new EJB 3.0 Java Persistence standard.
--Written by the Hibernate founder and project lead.
--Object/relational mapping concepts
--Real-world tasks and examples
--Application design and development processes with ORM

Average Customer Rating:

Going into Hibernation with ORM?

Customer Rating:

If you have seen the light of ORM and want a good technical read on this subject, this book is not for you. JPA here, Hibernate there, JPA here, Hibernate there. All over the place with nothing on GUID and how Hibernate/JPA handles that. Please split this book into two books next time around covering JPA 2.0 and Hibernate 3/4. And more coverage on Java SE and Java EE environments as well as best practices and design patterns chapters would have been helpful.

JPA with Hibernate or Hibernate with JPA?

Customer Rating:

This book is obviously a pitch for two of the main technologies in the JBoss Java EE stack: Hibernate and Seam. I was expecting heavier and more in-depth coverage of JPA 1.0 and highlights of forthcoming changes in JPA 2.0 but instead there is a lot of Hibernate config xml coverage and absolutely no mention of Spring. This mammoth tome obviously should have been released as two books, one on JPA and one on Hibernate. You're better off with the previous edition (*much* less confusing than this one) and online docs. Good luck, this is a horrible, painful read. Now how about a long overdue Head First Hibernate?!

Very helpful	Customer Rating:
This book is not a cookbook, but it does provide a deeper-than-usual perspective on the concepts guiding Hibernate and ORM in general. As a result, you have to read it differently from the run-of-the-mill software book: say a chapter at a time, rather than simply copying the code samples. In my experience, that special effort really pays off. Thanks to the authors!

decent material but poorly written

Customer Rating:

First off, if you want a great example of a very well written technical book on Java EE, check out Seam in Action. Allen covers ORM as well. This book goes back and forth between the Hibernate xml mappings and the JPA annotations very often. The Hibernate Session API and JPA EntityManager API is thrown around willy nilly in the text. It's very difficult to concentrate and digest the information. But there is some good stuff in there including second level cache and Seam (which seams inappropriate for a ORM book). Also there is way too much detail at times (most of the book honestly) so you don't get the high-level picture of the ORM concepts. What about Kodo and JPOX and other persistence providers for JPA? Not written by a native English speaker apparently so another minus. JPA and Hibernate are obviously related but they belong in separate books for clarity. For JPA, I recommend Java Persistence book by Mike Keith (Apress). Or the spec (JSR 220). This book is not worth the price, find something better. For Hibernate, you can learn a lot from the Caveat Emptor download as well. The authors have yet to finish the Seam version of Caveat Emptor! Get with the program!

You'll hate ORM if you read this book

Customer Rating:

I had a very difficult time reading this book. Manning should have released a new edition of Hibernate in Action and a Java Persistence in Action. The book is way too long and heavy. Very confusing to read as the authors keep going back and forth on code/xml for Hibernate and then JPA. not enough coverage on views and how when you reverse engineer a view a separate @Embeddable class is create by hbm2java and the primary key always consists of all the columns in the table which the view is based on. needs a chapter on best practices and design patterns (OSIV, for example). Performance tuning as well. When and why to use stored procs and whether or not JPA supports stored procs. the seam chapter in the end is random and not necessary (is this a JBoss stack book?) needs more coverage on Toplink Essentials (the RI for JPA), OpenJPA and other alternatives to Hibernate. needs coverage on what is planned for JPA 2.0 (like Criteria API). stay away from this book, it's very difficult to read and follow. stick with the specs, forums and online user docs.