The Hibernate manual mentions this as a best practice (http://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/orm/4.1/manual/en-US/html/ch26.html):


I'm not sure that I understand the point of this advice. I usually load the mappings with a configuration element like this one:


I guess this is what they are referring to when they say "load mapping as resources". But then, what are the other alternatives that are considered "bad practices"?

Thanks in advance for your responses.