Wow, quite a few questions!
I would like to know, how different this book will be from other books?
Many of the books on the market are very technical books that cover Hibernate from every angle. I focus on the parts that are most important, using very simple and reproducable examples. I find this is the way people tend to learn best. I don't try to cover everything in the Hibernate or JPA spec. Instead, I try to give you all of the knowledge you need to go to the specs when you need that extra bit of information, and then understand what you are reading.
Which version of Hibernate are you going to deal with?
The book focusses on Hibernate 3.2.6
I have used JDBC a lot , but ORM it's really new to me.
If you program in
Java, you're familiar with objects. Hibernate allows you to think about your persistence layer as objects as well. You code your Java domain model in a very natural way, and Hibernate translates that into JDBC at runtime. If you are good with object oriented models, you'll love Hibernate and J
What about the practical considerations of Hibernate in industry?
Many companies have become frustrated with EJB2.x, and can't wait for their vendor of choice to provide an
EJB 3.0 container. Many of the banks and insurance companies that I work with are in this boat, wanting something better than 2.0 CMPs, but not willing to wait for IBM to release an full version, EJB3.0 container. Hibernate is typically the solution they choose. And that's just one example.
Are there any case studies of Hibernate?
I offer free mock
SCJA exams on my website. Just follow my signature links. It uses Hibernate, and reliably serves ten or twenty people a day!
-Cameron McKenzie