Hibernate : mapping files or annotations?

Question

As I started working with Hibernate a few days ago, I was just wondering : suppose you\'re starting a project from scratch. Would you use annotation-based mapping or Hibernate m

Answer 1

What advantages I see in using @Annotations:

• compiler-safe
• based on @Entity you can easily distinguish entity from no-entity
• with packagesToScan Spring's feature entites are easily scannable
• moving entites from packages to packages or class renaming is easy

What advantages I see in using XML:

• it does not litters java classes with unnecessary vendor-specific annotations (imagine java model class with JPA, JAXB, SOLRJ annotations)
• configuration in one place
• easier to maintain as a whole

We use annotations, but keep XML as an option.