Java Data Objects revolutionizes the way Java developers interact with databases and other datastores. JDO allows you to store and retrieve objects in a way that's natural to Java programmers. Instead of working with JDBC or EJB's container-managed persistence, you work directly with your Java objects. You don't have to copy data to and from database tables or issue SELECTs to perform queries: your JDO implementation takes care of persistence behind-the-scenes, and you make queries based on the fields of your Java objects, using normal Java syntax.

The result is software that is truly object-oriented: not code that is partially object-oriented, with a large database-shaped lump on the back end. JDO lets you save plain, ordinary Java objects, and does not force you to use different data models and types for dealing with storage. As a result, your code becomes easier to maintain, easier to re-use, and easier to test. And you're not tied to a specific database vendor: your JDO code is entirely database-independent. You don't even need to know whether the datastore is a relational database, an object database, or just a set of files.

This book, written by the JDO Specification Lead and one of the key contributors to the JDO Specification, is the definitive work on the JDO API. It gives you a thorough introduction to JDO, starting with a simple application that demonstrates many of JDO's capabilities. It shows you how to make classes persistent, how JDO maps persistent classes to the database, how to configure JDO at runtime, how to perform transactions, and how to make queries. More advanced chapters cover optional features such as nontransactional access and optimistic transactions. The book concludes by discussing the use of JDO in web applications and J2EE environments.

Whether you only want to read up on an interesting new technology, or are seriously considering an alternative to JDBC or EJB CMP, you'll find that this book is essential. It provides by far the most authoritative and complete coverage available.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Don't buy this book - and let me tell you why - 2004-11-19
Reviewer Rating:
I was expecting something better from the JSR lead for JDO.

Before you buy this book, go to oreilly website for this book and go through the Chapter 1 available online. That chapter could have been fit in half as many pages without loss of information.

Now refer to the errata and README available on the oreilly website, download the JDO reference implementation and see if you can run the examples.

The examples don't work even if you follow the directions from the errata and README.

By now you would have wasted a few valuable hours.

If the Chapter 1 "An Initial Tour" is a waste of time, there is no reason to expect something better in the rest of the book.

So the books sucks, but you want to learn JDO! What can you do?

Download an evaluation edition of Kodo JDO from Solarmetric. Install it and you will get a JDO Developers Guide. Go through that. It is significantly better than this book. While you are at it, you can play with Kodo and get a feel for a real implementation of JDO, rather than Sun's reference implementation.

Easy to understand and detailed information! - 2004-06-25
Reviewer Rating:
This book is definitely the best on java data objects! i have read the one from prentice hall and addison wesley`s. its true that the first code example doesnt work, what is a shame but if you overcome your frustration and have a look at the oreilly website you can fond the correct and again detailed information (and even reason) to get it done. short cut to the correctings is : http://examples.oreilly.com/jvadtaobj/README.txt .

Nightmare reading - 2004-02-07
Reviewer Rating:
Good books don't get discounted by 60%, because items that sell well charge a premium in our capitalistic culture.

This book is unorganized. Lacks clear and cohesive sentence structure that leads to understanding. It is a step above the Enzio book, but that isn't really saying much. The code examples do run, check errata, and for some reason it is easier to read the code than a paragraph from this author. Go figure?

A true nightmare, and don't be fooled by the gratuitous stars from the author's friends.

Chapter 1 examples don't run - 2003-11-17
Reviewer Rating:
Maybe the rest of the book is Ok, or maybe not. I just tried to run the examples of the first chapter and it was impossible for me.

Simple and elegant - 2004-01-17
Reviewer Rating:
Java Data Objects is simple and straightforward, and solves a real
problem in an elegant way. Conveniently, this also serves as a
description of this enjoyable book from some of the key members of the
JDO specification team.

If you don't know, JDO is a recently standardized API for transparent
object persistence. A standalone reference implementation is
available, as are quite a few commercial and open-source versions that
piggyback on relational databases and other storage solutions. JDO's
popularity is growing rapidly because of its simplicity, ease of use,
and scalability. "Java Data Objects" is a timely and practical
treatment of this new API.

After a clear and accessible overview, this book first presents JDO in
a tutorial style using a simple but nontrivial example
application. Later chapters fill in the details where needed: for
instance, a whole chapter is dedicated to the difficult topic of
object identity.

The motivations behind JDO's development are explained well, and
comparisons to other object-persistence solutions, including EJB
container-managed persistence, are fair and balanced. One of this
book's few flaws is that despite the authors' important roles on the
standards committee, the rationale behind some of JDO's more puzzling
properties are left unexplained. In particular, JDO requires that only
a small subset of the standard Collections be supported by a JDO
implementation, but this book doesn't explain how this subset was
chosen.

All in all, an excellent tutorial and reference that will have you up
and running with JDO in no time at all.

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