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I am having a hard time describing the differences between a DataSource and a SessionFactory (like what is provided by Hibernate) to a client. How they are different, what the pros and cons are for each.

If any of you can give me an example (not code but verbal example) or analogies that would be awesome.

Well, they have nothing to do with each other, really. It's like asking what a Car and an Apple have in common.

I know that but for some reason, after reading your book, my client insists that the SessionFactory is a Datasource. I am trying to find verbal explanations between the two.

thanks

A SessionFactory is an instance that represents a Hibernate configuration for a particular datastore incl. all mapping metadata, at runtime. A Datasource is a data source. A SessionFactory can use a DataSource.

Thought of this a bit more but not sure if it is a good analogy

The datasource is like the phone line. The phone book is JNDI since the datasource you created can be looked up in the JNDI directory. SessionFactory is a lawyer that knows what his clients want (mapping objects ot database) and wanting to use the datasource phone line in order to send/store the message.

You will never be able to explain such a concept to a person who has no technical knowledge. If it is a person who knows Java technology, explaining "this is a configuration object at runtime and this is a database connection" should be no problem. Or you can just give up, because if that is not understood, there is not much hope for anything else.

Well, he is a client and giving up would be very bad. :-(
Nevertheless, thanks for your input