Is it really this hard ?
346492
I feel a little odd rating this thing as low as two stars.  After all, it does pack a lot of information into its 800+ pages.  And that does make it a single point of reference ... sort of.

It's when I actually tried to use this fat tome to learn how to work with Hibernate that I encountered the first problem.  I can't recommend that approach.  This book is a terrible way to learn how to use Hibernate.  It talks endlessly about all kinds of detail about everything you might want to do, and even provides many incomplete code snippets.  But surprisingly it doesn't sit you down and walk you through a simple application actually using Hibernate.  The authors do provide a full-blown application you can download and work through - but that won't be easy, dear reader, and it will take you a while to distill the basics from the advanced usage.

This seems to be a problem with most Hibernate books, for some reason - they all think they need to explain ORM to the world rather than simply show how to create an application.  Explaining ORM AND showing how to build an application might be better.

So, OK, perhaps, I thought, this will become my master reference.  Then I encountered the second problem.  There's no good way to drill quickly to a nugget of information you need, which, after all, is the essence of a reference.  Instead you will have to read through the theoretical explanations and design discussions to figure out if the trail leads you to the specific nugget you need to get your software working.

In the end I realized that the book is not good as a tutorial and not good as a reference and I was left to wonder what it might be good for.  This surprised me, to be honest.

As far as I am aware, no practical Hibernate book has been written, so it would be unfair to single out this one. (The Manning book, Hibernate Quickly, is simply incorrect at too many points - you have to figure out the coding and config errors.)  So I'm not singling out this one.  However, in my view the praise for this book is directed at the terrific work done by the authors in creating and maintaining Hibernate rather than their work on this book.  Their work in this book is unfocused and, while comprehensive and correct, ultimately difficult to use for any practical purpose.

If you want to learn how to use Hibernate, the best way I know is to work with some of the tutorials available on the Web or to download an app server and follow their documentation.  You might not learn about "theta-style joins", but you will certainly learn to use Hibernate to create software much more quickly that way than by using this book.
1816458
Fun, though not easy to win! Have patience, you'll figure it out as you go through a half-dozen times :-)
3148843
I have enjoyed this book so far, I know this will work, but very hard transition to make, especially if on the road a lot
3703113
Book is great....but harder then it looks.  This is an art form that requires practice.
2143110
It's so hard to get started! I love the challenge though! I had to put it away for awhile to regroup!
3300423
This is a very difficult puzzle!  Obviously the sky and ice don't give too many visual cues, but most difficult is that the pieces are *very* regularly shaped.  Only the over-70 set in our household had the patience for the puzzle.  The penguin-loving 11-year-old, overconfident 9-year-old, and harried 40+-year-olds have participated in other 1000-piece difficult family puzzles in the past, but this was in another league. The grandparents did eventually finish.  Consider yourself warned!
1905555
Very hard to do. Never  have had trouble doing the 1000 piece puzzles. This is so hard.
4345458
This game is very difficult. The gameplay is very very very confusing and it's one of the hardest game I've played. However, when I play games, its for enjoyment and for challenge. This game is not so much enjoyable to me and the challenge is ridiculously crazy. I'm into Ninja type action game and been a fan since sega genesis era but this game is not for me. Recommended for patient people who likes to use their brain to play games.
779516
Way too hard!!  My husband still has it sitting on puzzle table since Christmas!  For serious puzzlers with time!!
243129
This is harder than it looks.  I'm a handy guy, and botched the repair all the same.  I can't recommend that you attempt this yourself.
1425637
On hard difficulties, where I prefer a challenge, the game is almost impossible to love around let alone to try to shoot your way out of danger.

Don't get me wrong, the graphics and controls are laid out fairly well, but the game has the emphasis in sneaking around the entire game.

On" Hard", even when you come across the Alin for the first time, once it spots you, you are literally done even if you are sneaking around; so it's like you have to be lucky when you peak your head out to see what's going on and/or where you have to go in order to know what you have to do or where you have to go.

I watched a video review on YouTube and they said that the game takes approximately 18 hours to complete.  Yeah, by who's standards and on what difficulty?

If you buy this game, which I do think it's worth it at a moderate price, but play it on a relatively easy difficulty.
1374208
It was ok but its hard we had to go on the computer to get help. You have to find purple stars. It was not so fun because it was hard. But you will get it like I did. The best part was when you get to go into her dressing room.
3760165
This game is beautiful, but hard as hell !
Getting use to the mechanics is a pain ! Frustrating at times, but once you get it, I'm sure it will be awesome, someday.
3656535
This workbook was suggested to me by a therapist.  It can be painful to do, however this is a difficult journey.  When you enter your answers you may shed many tears.  This is not to say they are all bad cries, however, this book does help get us through a very difficult and painful journey, you can go months, reread and learn where you were, and where you are.
2704903
Its not easy to use, there is difficulties here but I am working them out. Need to practice alot
3261216
A new user to FormZ I was stuggling to find a way to alleviate the stress of such a high learning curve. This book helps in more of an indirect way then I had expected. The tutorials are relativly well written but are  difficult to reproduce. I found myself banging my head against the wall  trying to figure out what I had done wrong. When I did figure it out I did  learn but only after hours of frustration. If you are a new user be  prepared for some long hours.
2351931
This is by far the most difficult step workouts I have ever tried and I am not a beginning stepper. This routine will take a few times to get the steps down right. Her cueing is hard to hear too.