Rating:  - A book that is "for by and of" for hibernate developer's
I would strongly recomend Hibernate in Action - the book for Hibernate developers. The step by step contents were handy.
I am also working on some contribution to the Hibernate community.
Very inspirational book in my 4 years of opensource community involvment.
Rating: - Focused walk through the essentials
It's nice to find a book that sticks dead on topic and provides a thorough walkthrough. This is that kind of book. It's relatively short. There is a brief introduction to the basics of the O/R mapping problem. Then it's straight into the heart of Hibernate. It starts by discussing persistent objects, then transactions, then into a fine section on performance, and finally a section of code generation as it's applied to Hibernate.
The coverage is a little terse. Graphics are used effectively but not overused. This is not a for dummies book. It's for programmers who know their stuff and want a professional walkthrough of Hibernate architecture and implementation.
Rating:  - A valuable resource to creating Hibernate applications!
As a Hibernate/Spring developer the last 5 months, I have found this book as an impeccable resource for creating Hibernate applications. Many best practices helped me code my application the "right" way and with limited snags. Good coverage on the theory as well as the practical aspects. Also, great snippets on how and why Hibernate does what it does which can be frustrating for a novice Hibernate programmer without this information. Christian has been quick to answer most questions I have posed to him regarding some ambiguities or questions I had.
The only reason for my 4 star rating is that the examples were somewhat run-of-the-mill. Understandibly, but I wish I saw some more for different situations, particularily SOA type solutions where Hibernate VOs have to be serialized, which brings up a whole host of issues. Also, this book is not the only resource that is of value - the reference documentation + this book + curt Hibernate forum responses ;o) = hibernate solution of goodness!
Rating: - Start off with this book
I have used EJB 2.0 entity beans, OptimalJ for database mapping with my domain models. Until hibernate came along, I had to work with so many files for a single domain model. Hibernate just got better. It's now integrated with JBoss 4.0 That means you write one less xml(hibernate.cfg.xml). One xml per database table and one plain old java object(pojo). It's the most cleanest and simplist solution I have seen so far for domain mapping. I strongly suggest you try this book to get started on hibernate. It's not a hype. It's reality. I am a firm believer in agile manifesto, MDA and RAD. Hibernate will help you achieve such.
Rating:  - In progress, some good, some bad.
Disclaimer: I'm only on chapter 4 at the moment, so my opinion may change as I complete the book.
The first three chapters are fantastic; simply the best introduction to the concepts in Hibernate that I've ever seen. I wouldn't mind seeing some more examples and table layouts, but really, I have no complaints. The recommendations of good practices are illuminating and excellent. For these three chapters alone, the book was a worthwhile purchase.
In chapter 4, something bad happens; the writing suddenly becomes very generic without the usual guidance as to what concepts you should use and when. It could also really use some schema and sequence diagrams to clarify what's happening behind-the-scenes, especially with the more convoluted detached objects.
The index hasn't been very helpful so far, but the table of contents is detailed enough to make up for some of that.
One thing that might help is a reference section that goes over each item in the hibernate config and mapping files and explaining what that option does, with an example, and what other options it interoperates with (also with examples). Then again, much of that is actually available from the Hibernate FAQ, so perhaps they supplement each other.
Like I said, I'm still happy with the book, but it might only be a one-time read. I'll update this review after I finish the book.
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