Poorly organized, poorly written

Parts of the book are organized oddly. For example, it gives a complete reference to the mapping files in Chapter 5 without explaining some of the core concepts (e.g., such as how to do one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many mappings). As a result, those items are just words and terms without any understanding of what they mean. Only later in Chapter 7 do we get the explanation for the concepts. Other books, such as the O'Reilly "In a Nutshell" books, are careful to put the reference at the end.

Even then, much of the writing seems rushed without much attention given to coherence. For example, on page 246 it says:

'In this situation, the rule of thumb is that inverse="false" should be set for the side of the relationship with the smallest number of elements changed the most frequently.'

Now think that through carefully and try to decipher what it might mean. Perhaps "smallest" should be "smaller" if there are only two sides? And maybe "most" should be "more" for the same reason. Who knows? The point it the reader shouldn't have to struggle with such core concepts.

I'm happy that I borrowed the book from the library rather than having wasted my own money on it! Addison-Wesley should be ashamed to be associated with this book.

Other Reviews

• Nice reference
• Poorly organized, poorly written
• Crap - Regurgitation of the Hibernate.org Docs
• Doesn't cover standard way of working with Hibernate