In the classic style of Manning's "In Action" series, NHibernate in Action shows .NET developers how to use the NHibernate Object/Relational Mapping tool. This book is a translation from Java to .NET, as well as an expansion, of Manning's bestselling Hibernate in Action. All traces of Java have been carefully replaced by their .NET equivalents. The book shows how to implement complex business objects, and later teaches advanced techniques like caching and session management. Readers will discover how to implement persistence in a .NET application, and how to configure NHibernate to specify the mapping information between business objects and database tables. Readers will also be introduced to the internal architecture of NHibernate by progressively building a complete sample application using Agile methodologies.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 9 Ratings

The NHibernate Bible - 2009-07-05
Reviewer Rating:
I'd argue that this book may be more appropriately naming something along the lines of "ORM in Action (with a focus on NHibernate)" because it is not only a bible for understanding and using NHibernate, but for ORM concepts in general! The authors skillfully intertwine detailed and insightful discussion of general database, ORM, and enterprise development concepts with the nitty-gritty implementation details of NHibernate, all in an easy-to-read manner. Beginning with a tour of many of the various ORM (and ORM-ish) solutions available to .NET developers and ending with a few chapters dedicated to discussing best practices of enterprise application development, this is a very well-rounded book that is easily digested by developers of pretty much any skill level. I knew only high-level details about NHibernate and had a few mis-guided attempts at implementing it by myself prior to reading this book, but now I feel incredibly confident that I will be able to create plenty of NHibernate-driven applications with ease. Another great benefit is the comfort I get from knowing that when I hit any more snafus in the future, it is obviously that this book will be there as a solid reference to help get me through.

The cons? Yeah, I agree with many of the other comments/reviews when they say that it'd be nice if the book discussed NHibernate 2 & .NET 3.x functionality (like LINQ-to-NHibernate), but I think those expectations are somewhat unrealistic. Because of its open source nature, NHibernate is a living organism with stark contrast to a published book. Due to this contrast, I am more interested in a text that can explain the fundamental concepts than an incredibly in-depth (and quickly obsolete!) explanation of the technical implementation of those concepts.

When it comes down to it, this is a great book that delivers on its promises and provides a comprehensive look at NHibernate in Action and how you can get it working for you. I'm just gonna come right out and say it - this is the NHibernate Bible.

Get Hibernate in Action instead - 2009-11-19
Reviewer Rating:
I now read about 80% of the book and must agree, that it is not very well organized and definitely not current.

But, the good things first.
I am new to NHibernate and ORMs in general and this book gives a great introduction to the design patterns, inner workings, alternatives and so on.

Sometimes it is hard to follow though.

A lot of things get repeated or are explained out of order, so you loose your train of thought.
A friend of mine lent me "Hibernate in Action (In Action series)" (I was hoping it might be better organized) and I was surprised to find that "NHibernate in Action" is a chapter, for chapter, word for word replica of it.
Just substitute .Net for Java.
(Naturally the NHibernate configuration/mapping chapters are different).

Unfortunately that difference is not too useful because the C# configuration and mapping code/XML is hopelessly outdated (at first I thought they made a mistake on the cover ("Covers Version 1.2"). I assumed they meant version 2.1.
This means of course that there is no mention of Fluent NHibernate, which at the least should replace attribute defined mapping (in the book it is recommended over XML mappings for type safety advantages which Fluent NHibernate brings to the table along with a much more natural mapping approach).

To sum it up, while it is a great book, the adjustments from the Java book to .Net are not of much use today and you might therefore get the Java version which is equally as good.
This will save you about $15 since it goes for $8.50 used right now.

Excellent book - 2009-07-06
Reviewer Rating:
This is an awesome book. I now realize that nHibernate is not just about mapping files. I also learned about the lifecycle of the nHibernate Session itself and how to tie that to a asp.net session and how you can layer a ORM solution within an MVC framework. A must read for anyone trying to understand Object/Relational mapping and separation of concerns.

It first lays out all the mapping features (about .hbm files)in great detail. I feel that the chapter on Real world applications (chapter 8) must have come much earlier in the book. Reading about every feature of nHibernate was tiresome, until I figured out I really don't need all this for the time being and jumped to the end where it talks about integrating with asp.net, databinding, DAO etc.

Overall its a good book.

A good reference - 2009-06-29
Reviewer Rating:
Despite being written for NHibernate version 1.2 when version 2.0 was already been released, it is the main reference book for NHibernate.

This book gives a good insight and a few best practices for creating ORM powered [...]

Great Read - 2009-04-27
Reviewer Rating:
This book does a fantastic job of showing the ins and outs of ORM with NHibernate while giving guidance on best practices in data mapping. Good Stuff.

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