Chapter 5. Using Hibernate for Persistent Objects

5. Using Hibernate for Persistent Objects

WITHIN THE FIRST FEW YEARS OF my software development career, I came to realize more and more that information (data) is an organization's main asset; however, many developers tend to lose sight of this fact and get caught up in the latest cool tools.

We often use the words "information technology" (or simply, IT) but have you ever stopped to think about these two words? In my opinion, the definition is obvious: technology to manage information. Simply put, data is at the core of what we do in our industry because we are constantly moving data from point A to point B. No matter how many systems the data travels through, it originates on one end (point A; for example, a UI) and is typically viewed on the other end (point B; for example, reports). Furthermore, the data and its structure typically outlive the applications built around it; hence, it should arguably be the most important component of an overall software application's architecture.

Given my emphasis on data and databases, I will cover Hibernate before the other key products discussed later in this book, such as the Spring Framework and the Eclipse SDK.