Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse is a very good book. Right in the preface the author states that his goals are describe how to do rapid development of enterprise Java applications using an agile process and to show how to do so using a consistent example woven throughout the book. The book achieves those goals excellently. The book is not a comprehensive API guide to Spring or Hibernate, nor does it intend to be.
The author, clearly a very experienced Java developer and architect, takes us step–by–step through his thought process in building an application. Along the way he provides tips, tricks, and insights often in the form of sidebars. The only thing that prevents me from giving the book a five–star rating is that there were a few sections that were more about the author than the technologies in the title. For example, a section on the author’s “near future plans” and his research interest in “visual patterns.”
The book achieves the goals set out in the preface and is a wonderful introduction to agile, Spring, Hibernate, and Eclipse. Recommended.