5, but has continued to release new versions of iBATIS for Java. Versions 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 came out in April 2008, and 2.3.3 in July. The framework is currently available in Java, .NET, and Ruby (RBatis) versions. The jBati project is a JavaScript ORM inspired by iBATIS. The Apache iBator tool is closely related: it connects to your database and uses its metadata to generate iBATIS mapping files and Java classes. History In 2001 a project called iBATIS was started by Clinton Begin. Originally the focus was on the development of cryptographic software solutions. The first product to be released by iBATIS was Secrets, a personal data encryption and signing tool much like PGP. Secrets was written entirely in Java and was released under an open source license. That year Microsoft published a paper to demonstrate that its recent .NET 1.0 framework was more productive than Java. For that purpose Microsoft built its own version of Sun's Web "Pet Store", a Web project that Sun had used to show Java best practices (Java BluePrints). Microsoft claimed that .NET was 10 times faster and 4 times more productive than Java. In 2002 Clinton developed an application called JPetStore to demonstrate that Java could be more productive than .NET and could also do so while achieving a better architecture than was used in the Microsoft implementation. JPetStore 1.0 had a big impact and the database layer that Clinton used attracted the attention of the community. Soon, iBATIS Database Layer 1.0 project started, composed of two components: iBATIS DAO and iBATIS SQL Maps. iBATIS 2.0 was released in June 2004. It was a complete redesign while keeping the same features. Clinton donated the iBATIS name and code to Apache Software Foundation and the project stayed in the ASF for six years. Eventually iBATIS DAO was deprecated, considering that better DAO frameworks were available, such as Spring Framework. On May 19, 2010 iBATIS 3.0 was published and simultaneously the development team decided to continue the development of the framework at Google Code. under a new project called MyBatis. On June 16, 2010 Apache announced that iBATIS was retired and moved to the Apache Attic. See also Java Persistence API Hibernate EclipseLink Apache Cayenne IBM PureQuery nHydrate OpenJPA References Bibliography External links iBATIS Java (programming language) Object-relational mapping Persistence frameworks