A Must Have for Hibernate Developers
When doing projects that use mapping files, everyone gets a copy of this book. It is exactly what it is - a good handbook about Hibernate.
The only drawback to this book is that it covers only mapping files, without any focus on annotations.
error & outdated
not only is this book pretty outdated as it only focuses on hibernate2 and not the newer release hibernate3 which is not backwards compatible... there was also a "serious technical error" early on in the book that set me back a while... google the corrections if you use this book.
the writing style was decent... i wouldn't mind reading an newer updated copy
Still good years later
I purchased this book when it first came out, and this past weekend finally got around to doing all of the examples. I suggest downloading Hibernate2, which is what the book covers. Hibernate3 is a bit different in structure and will just slow down what you are trying to learn.
Needless to say 2 days later I am building my backend with Hibernate and upset with myself that I did not read and study this book a year go.
I do suggest getting a nice Hibernate reference book on top of this. This book will get you started nicely (by chapter 2 I was on my way), but it would be of value to understand more of the details.
excellent book
Yes...
i just got it yesterday and brought it to work and it helped me solve an issue that has been buggin me since 2 days ago!
The examples seem to be quiet easy to read and the format is basically what a developer would ask very intuitive.
Good book but needs an update
For the versions of Hibernate and Hsqldb it was written for this is an excellent book to get you up and running, and a good introduction into the Hibernate platform.
But Hibernate and Hsqldb both have moved on and many (most) of the examples no longer work without modification.
Nothing that searching the web and Hibernate documentation can't find quickly though, leaving it still a viable introduction into the concepts and syntax.
I personally like thin books and this one certainly doesn't try to spoonfeed you Java or anything, it assumes the reader is smart enough to figure things out for himself.
