title: Possibility to eliminate persistence.xml?
body: <p>I'm quite new to the Java EE persistence world, so I apologize if the question seems odd. In Servlets 3.0 one can eliminate the web.xml file completely and strictly use annotations instead. Can you do this with JPA as well? I've been reading all sorts of things about EntityManagerFactory and PersistenceProvider and so forth so I'm just sort of curious.  </p>
  
  <p>Is a way to eliminate the xml files completely and just use subclasses and annotations instead?</p>
  
  <p>Side Note: Preferably, I'd like to stay away from external third-parties such as Spring, though if the solution only exists for them, I'll humbly receive the knowledge.</p>
  
  <p>** EDIT: Removed "hibernate" from list of third-parties.</p>