[Springframework-developer] Hibernate and JDBC connection vs. Spring's need for a DataSource.

[Ezra E. <eep...@pr...>]

First off, I tried searching the existing list, but since it's sourceforge,
search doesn't work.  I tried: "hibernate", "datasource", etc.  No luck.
Even tried "IHibernateTemplate" which is saw in to topic of one post and
that returned an empty set as well.  Sigh.  Wouldn't a searchable phpBB
forum be nice...

Meanwhile, the issue at hand.  I'm using Hibernate.  I've read about Spring.
I'm thinking Spring sounds great.  Want to move to include it.  This being a
needs-driven development effort, we have a problem with Hibernate: it has
zero support for stored procedures.  So, enter Spring.  Nice support for
arbitrary JDBC/SQL.  Just write the result-set row handler and you are done.
Sounds perfect.  3 hours later I've abandoned Spring.   Why?  Well, Spring
wants everything to include a DataSource.  But we run Hibernate in 2 modes:
stand-alone, for testing and inside a container for web deployed apps.
Currently we configure Hibernate directly -- easy, external
hibernate.cfg.xml file.  But Hibernate's "abstraction" is all based on a
java.sql.Connection object, which for sending queries, makes perfect sense.
So, for the life of me, I can't figure out why Spring always wants a
DataSource and rather than change everything that currently works and move
it all over so that Spring handles configuration and gives itself a
DataSource, I've decided it's not worth it.  By then I could have written
the calls and handlers in plain JDBC 3 times over.... Again, this is a
needs-driven effort.

2 questions:

  1. Is there a different entry point to all of Springs JDBC utility methods
that relies on a lowly connection object instead of a DataSource?
  2. If not, why not?

Thanks,

   == Ee