..but you can use DAOs for persistence. After all, they are Data Access Objects. There's no reason say they can't be used for persistence. At my comapany, we have two types of DAOs: entity DAOs and custom DAOs. The entity DAOs handle persistence (and are generated based on the database, so we don't have to hand code them), the custom ones handle whatever they need to.
Personally, I stopped using entity beans years ago -- back around
EJB v1.1. They were (and still are) cumbersome and don't translate between application servers very well. My company changed from entity EJBs to straight DAO because the Entity Bean model just didn't work very well (performance was also an issue).
So, my recommendation is quite simple: don't use entity beans. There are a number of other persistence mechanisms out there that cause fewer headaches (Hibernate, strainght DAO, etc.)
Piscis Babelis est parvus, flavus, et hiridicus, et est probabiliter insolitissima raritas in toto mundo.