I really like iBatis, and am grateful to Begin for writing it. I've used it for several years, and recommend it. But I hate this book.

The author quotes himself as having said that iBatis would be a failure if there had to be a book written about it. The problem is, although he changed his mind about writing the book, he never changed his mind about there being no need for a book.

The implicit narrative thread running throughout this book is, "iBatis is so simple, so self-evident, you don't need a book", and so, instead of writing a tutorial/reference book, he has written a pastiche of anecdotes about how to implement his sample project.

Here's the problem: instead of breaking out a section, for example, on how to handle stored procedures that would start with an overview, then go through get object, get list, update, insert, execute, how to deal with custom data types, how to get your result as a return from the procedure call as opposed to putting it into an OUT or INOUT parameter; instead of doing that, along the way to other things, he shows an embedded example of how to use a stored proc in a particular case.

I can see that the major problem he had to solve in writing this book was how he was going to manage to fill enough pages for it to be a book rather than an article. He rambles on, talking *about* topics rather than *in* topics, skimming along, rather than digging in.

I recommend the book simply because it's the only one out there, but I think you'll find that it's fine if all you want to do is learn *about* iBatis, but that if you have specific questions on how to implement certain things, or solve very real problems, you'll wind up frustrated and disappointed.

Since this is the only book available on Ibatis, so i purchased it.
But the latest version of ibatis has a lot of changes and this book is based on the older version.
I got a lot of information on ibatis online.
Download ibatis and go through the docs( there is Ibatis_SqlMap.pdf ) and same some money ;)

claro y conciso..
con ejemplos puntuales ,, este libro se deja entender a pesar de estar en ingles y de que mi nivel en java no es tan alto.

This is very good book with nice examples and I think this is even better book for users who have never used any form of ORM

I now have a much better insight into iBatis because the authors provided both background design and detailed information about the product. It was much better than the documentation I found via the web (there's lots to be said for technical and editorial review of a book).

The setup and code examples are excellent. I also like the writing style and structure of the book. Clear and logical.

However, I would like an expanded section on using the Spring DAO with iBatis, as this is now the recommended approach over the iBatis DAO.

Although I was already using iBatis, this book is a welcome addition to my library.

The book is concise, good structured and it's enough expresivo. This is the first book that I read in English and I understand in its entirety.

Congratulations Clinton

As Authors mentioned and I totally agree, IBATIS is relatively small framework that does what it says it does very well, I have used it before and the only reason I bought this book was to have a reference guide. and it does exactly that very very well, IBATIS is not complicated concept it does not need 800 pages, this book is something One can look over and over again for techniques and ways to use for example dynamic SQL appenders etc
no more digging through Google or through, not so clear, official IBATIS reference guide.

I am now using iBatis on my second project. In the first project I was content to use iBatis with Spring. On the second project I am using Abator with iBatis, Spring, and Tiles.
In my humble opinion, this book needs a second edition. In the second edition an entire chapter devoted to Abator is in order. The current edition has nothing at all in it about Abator. The section on Spring in the second edition should be dramatically lengthened to a chapter instead of the current short passage.
That having been said, I still like the first edition of this book, primarily because I personally found the online iBatis documentation so confusing that I had given up on iBatis until this book came along. But I view it as a start not a finish, towards writing the definitive book on iBatis (and Abator).
Hopefully a second edition will also have a better index with improved cross-referencing and cross-indexing.

I was eager too have a look at this book as I've been using iBatis for a number of years and I'm a great believer in teaching old dogs new tricks.

Unfortunately this book was quite a disappointment. I found it to be marginally better than the online documentation. What I was hoping for was more of a iBatis Cook Book or advanced user guide. One of iBatis' strengths has always been the great documentation. This always makes starting so much easier. That's why when looking at books I'm always looking for them to go beyond the online docs.

As an example this book mentions using Spring as the DAO framework and citing that is has many advantages of the now depracated Ibatis DAO framework. But, as with so much in this book, there is a lack of examples of using spring and what the advantages are.

I'm still a huge fan of iBatis. I just don't think this book offers a great deal.