Hi!

I need an advice, are there any limitations in using Hibernate in client layer of an application?

In my firm we have a banking application (client-server architecture) and we'd like to incorporate Hibernate into client layer (SWING) for making GUI screens which persist to certain tables in database.
These tables hold different kinds of parameters that affect business logic and users of application can change them in runtime through GUI.

Currently we use plain JDBC and we need to write insert, update and delete statements for every GUI screen, which is hard work. From an application architecture point of view, mixing Hibernate with client layer isn't a best practice but in this case we think it might be useful.
Is this correct? Or, are there other solutions to this problem?

We're using Rational as development tool. Is there any plugin that can automatically produce classes necessary for Hibernate and maybe draw a Swing screen (like netbeans and matisse)?

Thanks in advance,
Stjepan Buljat

Hi,

I think it's challenging but it can certainly be achieved. If it was me I would make the client code unaware of hibernate and keep all hibernate-specific stuff in the server-side business layer.

Here's a link that might have some good points:

http://www.hibernate.org/124.html

-Paul

I agree but this kind of solution needs thorough planning of communication mechanisms between server and client layer, what's the best way to do it?

I mean, it's difficult to create a layer on top of Hibernate which is exposed to client layer, through which I need to send some kind of objects (back and forth) just to make a change of some rows in a single database table.

I see the need for sticking to architectural principles but is it worth it? In this case, naturally...

Regards,
Stjepan Buljat