Customer Reviews
Lightweight - unfortunately not in a good way - By: A reader, 19 Jun 2008 
I am normally a big fan of O'Reilly books but this needs to be more of a 'definitive guide'. I honestly feel that if you only read this book you really won't know what you are doing with Hibernate - it only skims over the subject & spends far too much time off-subject, talking about Maven etc.
For example, the book does not cover second-level cachingin Hibernate. This is a key feature which can improve application performance, but there is no reference for itin the index & almost no mention of itin the book. It just says 'switch off caching' around page 50 & doesn't mention it again. Also, there is no discussion of locking strategies - e.g. optimistic vs pessimistic locking - which is essential to understand if you are building critical systems. Both of these are of course coveredin the reference documentation as well asin books such as 'Pojosin Action'.
The books repeatedly says 'look at the reference documentation for more detail'. Personally, I think you'd be better off ONLY reading the reference documentation. The reference documentation is fewer pages & far more useful, as well as being free.
Excellent book with clear examples - By: Java Mark, 09 May 2008 
This book is by far one of the best books on Hibernate. The main reason is the example code that go handin hand with the book, & illustrates why Hibernate is so powerful. A decent clear example which simply solves the problem presentedin each chapter is what every hard working developer needs from a book. Harnessing Hibernate delivers on thisin spades.
