Question

I need some tutorials on how to get started with nHibernate and Fluent nHibernate. I’m coming from an Entity Framework background (which seems easier to use). I’ve tried sites like http://www.summerofnhibernate.com/ to get a grasp on nHibernate itself, but it seems outdated.

I’d like to generate a mapping of my database tables (al la Entity Framework), and do simple CRUD using nHibernate. I’m also using ASP.NET MVC and Visual studio 2010. Thanks.

Answer 1

Although a few years old, Summer of NHibernate concepts are pretty much intact and that’s what it teaches you best. If you’re a patient learner, start there.

On the side of Fluent NHibernate, the best tutorial is still the official one. The minor gripe it has is that it assumes that you’re coming from an NHibernate raw background, so it’s not particularly great explaining how to configure NHibernate (i.e. installing binaries for it and any given database). Edit: See Update at the bottom.

• ASP.NET MVC: Although there are good tutorials for using NHibernate with ASP.NET MVC, every resource focuses on ASP.NET MVC and/or simply getting them to work together, assuming you already know it. But if you insist…

• NHibernate books: NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook.

  1. NHibernate: a knol by Fabio Maulo
  2. Your first NHibernate based application
  3. Fluent NHibernate wiki

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A bit more advanced resources:

• NHibernate Profiler
• S#arp Architecture: Best practices for ASP.NET and NHibernate.
• Hibernate (based on the original, java-based Hibernate, but the concepts are still the same).
• HQL: The Hibernate Query Language (I go here a lot).
• LINQ for NHibernate examples.
• Ayende @ Rahien: if you’re on the NHibernate boat, you want to read whatever this guy writes.
• NHibernate vs Entity Framework 4.0 – I think it’s an advanced article because you won’t understand it fully until you dabble with NHibernate, and if you have no clue about ORMs yet, you’ll waste 5 minutes of your life.

Update: NHibernate can now be easily configured using NuGet.