Hello,

We are starting a new project under Hibernate, and we would like to know which way is the best or easiest to work with.

1) Use HBM XMLs to create/maintain schema & then feed these XMLs to Hbm2Java so that POJOs will be generated for us. Later extend these POJOs as necessary.

OR

2) Use Java Annotations in the class and use these annotations to create HBM XMLs. Opposite of #1 above.

Our development team is split on this issue.

If we use #1 above in most cases we will have to extend the POJOs. But XMLs are compact and easier to maintain. Everything you need to know about a class is usually within 20 lines.

In #2 above, the maintenace becomes cumbersome since one has to scroll up and down or look at the generated XML to see the big picture. Plus we have to create the POJOs ourselves.

Thought we would approach the Hibernate community and learn from everyone's experience.

Thanks for your time & help.

Use what your crew will be the most productive with and what the architect has planned going forward. Some factors in this choice will be determined by deployment approach and the session manager you use , eg, JPA or Hibernate native API.

Having said that - why do you need to generate the XML from Annotations?

In general, If I was looking at starting a large project today, I would seriously consider employing hibernate native Annotations and use native hibernate API.

Duplicate thread... Couldn't it be merged by an admin? :-)
http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=