Anyone have an opinion on "Hibernate In Action"?

I'm wondering if it goes into detail about more complex cases or if it's just a slower version of the online docs. The Table of Contents is the only information that Manning or Amazon seem to have, and doesn't give me any indication of how in depth it might be.

Any opinions are appreciated.
Scott

Let me put it like this: It took us 18 months to write it. I think that "very detailed" is an underestimation.

Great. I'll be ordering it today, I just wish Manning had a longer TOC up. I got the O'Reilly notebook when it came out, and I'm disappointed - there's sooooo much it doesn't touch.

Hibernate is a beautiful thing. When I can't figure something out, though, it's incredibly frustrating. Like being given a Ferrari without knowing how to adjust the seat so that you can reach the pedals.

Or a better analogy. I've just broken my promise to not post before drinking enough coffee. oops...

It wouldn't be good style to talk much about the O'Reilly book, but I've read it. Let's just say that i can't recommend the book, not even for beginners, it has many many serious flaws and errors. E.g., all the assumptions and code examples about transactions are plain wrong. The author apparently only learned Hibernate when he wrote the book and just wrote down what he had in mind.

Okay, just my opinion, Hibernate in Action definately is not a "beginners introduction style" book. It is surely good for learning Hibernate, but it also gives you a hell of information about the more advanced concepts. I can only recommend buying it if you intend to use Hibernate seriously.

Great book. Highly recommended.

An opinion of a non hibernate team user:
It is so-so book... I am joking :) Seriously, the book is great! PDF version is cheap enough, lesser than $20. If I had this book 2-3 months earlier, escpecially chapters 5 and 7, I saved lotsa hair on my head :) Thanks to the authors.

--
Leonid

Hibernate in Action is actually very good. It should be subtitled "Everything you wanted to know about Hibernate but we weren't going to tell you in the API or other documentation ;)"

Seriously though, there is a large wealth in information in there and it is fairly well written. I want to take the time to read it start to finish at some point but for right now it has been picking up a chapter here and there to figure out how we're abusing things ;)

Actually, I think that the content is basically the same, at least from a "reference" standpoint. Of course, the Hibernate reference documentation has no story or handholding (or much tips on application design), but thats how it should be. I think no one would have waited 18 months for a reference documentation :)

Does the book offer examples and information on one-to-many and many-to-one relationships, etc?

Sure, we had to fill 432 pages.

Does the book go in to detail on how to integrate Hibernate with JBoss and other EJB application servers?

Like the example on http://www.hibernate.org/66.html but better? I'm currently struggling through this. :(

-David

Not much, we tried to be as framework/appserver-agnostic as possible (for obvious reasons). However, more JBoss/Hibernate documentation is in the pipeline, as well as some deployment enhancments.

great book

regards

really a great book thanks for your work

i think a detailed index at the end would be useful.

would the final version have one?