Why are Hibernate mappings elements not symmetrical?

[Marcin Mogiela]

Hi,

Let's see on many-to-one element. It describes a property user of a class and indicates an association.

<many-to-one name="user" class="sample.entity.User" />

In the below snippet we have many-to-many element as a sub-element of set.
The set element describes a class property adverts.
The many-to-many sub-element says that adverts property implements many-to-many association between this and a given class.

<set name="adverts">
<key column="category" />
<many-to-many class="sample.entity.Advert" column="advert" />
</set>

Wouldn't it be more consistent (see my first example) if many-to-many element was superior to the set element?. It could be like this:

<many-to-many name="adverts" class="sample.entity.Advert" column="advert">
<key column="category" />
</many-to-many>

Thanks,
Marcin
[ June 28, 2008: Message edited by: Marcin Mogiela ]