Hibernate - Part 1- Learning Resources

My previous experiences with enterprise Java utilized many of the core J2EE design patterns.  We used Data Access Objects (DAO), List Handlers, Value Objects, etc.  Sticking with these design patterns within our team ensured our apps would be flexible, reusable and standardized.

Developers were able to jump from project to project and hit the ground running because the persistence code was similar between all of our applications.  I learned a lot from this experience and the J2EE design patterns provided good runtime performance

The only problem I found with the J2EE design patterns for data persistence was the time required to create the necessary classes for each database table.  Coding the persistence layer was long and arduous and slowed down application development.

In the years since we began using the core J2EE design patterns, open source frameworks have gained popularity. I'm eager to use Hibernate for the persistence layer in my new application.  I'm hopeful that Hibernate will reduce complexity and most importantly reduce the time required for persistence coding.

I'm currently reading Harnessing Hibernate and working with some of the included code examples.  Some of the Amazon.com reviews are critical of this book's emphasis on other technologies like Ant and Maven.  The reviewers felt the book loses focus on Hibernate and spends too many pages elsewhere.  I don't share that sentiment, at least not yet.  I like to see how Hibernate fits into the whole ecosystem of a typical application.

Here's a very basic step-by-step tutorial for setting up Hibernate and Log4j on Eclipse.

I always look for YouTube videos on any new topic I'm trying to learn.  You might not think YouTube would be a great place to learn about java coding but there's plenty of helpful videos out there.  There's a series of 18 Hibernate videos from Patrick Washington that I've been watching and recommend.

Here's a video of the 1st part in the18 part series:

What resources have you found useful for learning Hibernate?  Your comments are welcome.