> Being a delphi developer for several years now my next project will be
> a java rich client swing application. Working with a firebird database
> as back end of course.
> I was thinking of using hibernate as the persistence layer.

That depends. If you plan to use database-aware controls from JBuilder, I
guess you'd better stay with Borland components. They are quite similar to
those you used in Delphi.

If you, though, plan to use plain Swing defining your own model classes,
then using Hibernate is ok. However it is different from what you have used
in Delphi (I assume you used IBX/FIB+/IBObjects or similar). The main
difference is that you will work with objects and collection of objects
instead of records and fields.

> For reporting facilities I consider jasper/iReports.

I have not used them.

> Besides any comments which I always appreciate I really would love to
> see some sample application (source code) to see how things work
> together: firebird + hibernate + swing + reporting.

The Firebird/Jaybird do not introduce any noticable specifics into the
Swing/Hibernate usage scenarios. You can use any example of using
Swing/Hibernate you find in the internet.

Roman