Objects by Design has created some UML diagrams for Hibernate 2.0.3 that might be useful to others for understanding the structure of Hibernate code:

Hibernate UML diagrams in SVG

You will need an SVG viewer to view these diagrams. See the forum post for instructions. Enjoy.

Stuart Zakon
Objects by Design
http://www.objectsbydesign.com

Stuart,

Any thoughts toward generating sequence diagrams? Static class inheritance has limited usefulness without understanding how and where these objects are used. And a decent IDE can navigate the relationships faster than one can pull up the class diagrams in a browser or on paper.

$0.02...

:b

Please see the Objects by Design forum thread which discusses the interesting UML tool J2U.

I do disagree, however, about the utility of static class diagrams. It is much, much quicker to get an overview of the software by looking at the class diagrams than looking at the source.

Conversely, looking at some reverse-engineered sequence diagrams can take a while to sort out, especially without hyperlinks from the objects on the sequence diagram to the class diagrams for these objects. See some of the reverse-engineered sequence diagrams produced by J2U in the thread above for examples.

I hear what you are saying here and don't disagree that more documentation is a Good Thing. But simply generating static object diagrams and posting them doesn't add a lot to the collective base.

Your comments on sequence diagrams resonate as well, but I'm not sure why anyone would view UML outside of a UML editor, given that ArgoUML and company exist and do a great job of this for free. I can't imagine browsing UML in any form from printed documentation except out of a job proposal from a vendor. It doesn't make sense to do so.

Regarding viewing source instead of diagrams, this is again a function of using a decent editor with hyperlinking capability.

It's really a function of the tools that you use for the job... Building a house with a screwdriver, saw and hammer is much more difficult than doing so with a circular saw, power drill/screwdriver and nailgun.

I took your advice and used a more powerful tool. Take a look at the job that TogetherSoft does on Hibernate!

Hibernate in UML:
http://opensource.objectsbydesign.com/h ... index.html

For browsing advice:
http://opensource.objectsbydesign.com

I particularly like the diagram for
net.sf.hibernate.type.

This can only be viewed in mozilla - too big for IE!