I am trying to learn hibernate and are building a webinterface for the CaveatEmptor.

In order to learn selecting a fetching strategy I want to build the following webpage:

When the enduser has selected a root category I want to return a RootCategoryDetail page that shows all the (childCategories with their 10 newest items).

But what is the most efficient way to do this?

Is it better to build one single query that gets all the information in one single select?

Or is it better to have several subselects?

And what if the application has lots of endusers? Isn't it always better to have as less select statements as possible?