NHibernate mapping attributes vs fluent NHibernate

To get a bidirectional association with a not-null foreign key column in the Details table you can add the suggested Owner property, a References(...).CanNotBeNull() mapping in the DetailsMap class, and make the Summary end inverse.

To avoid having two different foreign key columns for the two association directions, you can either specify the column names manually or name the properties in a way that gives the same column name for both directions. In this case you I suggest renaming the Details.Owner property to Details.Summary.

I made the Summary id generated by increment to avoid problems when inserting into the table since Summary currenty has no columns besides id.

Domain:

public class Detail
{
    public int id { get; protected set; }
    public string ItemName { get; set; }

    // Renamed to use same column name as specified in the mapping of Summary.Details
    public Summary Summary {get; set;} 
}

public class Summary
{
    public Summary()
    {
        Details = new List<Detail>();
    }

    public int id { get; protected set; }
    public IList<Detail> Details { get; protected set; }
}

Mapping:

public class DetailMap : ClassMap<Detail>
{
    public DetailMap()
    {
        Id(x => x.id)
            .GeneratedBy.Native();

        Map(x => x.ItemName)
            .CanNotBeNull();

        References<Summary>(x => x.Summary)
            // If you don't want to rename the property in Summary,
            // you can do this instead:
            // .TheColumnNameIs("Summary_id")
            .CanNotBeNull();
    }
}

public class SummaryMap : ClassMap<Summary>
{
    public SummaryMap()
    {
        Id(x => x.id)
            .GeneratedBy.Increment();

        HasMany<Detail>(x => x.Details)
            .IsInverse()
            .AsBag(); // Use bag instead of list to avoid index updating issues
    }
}

I don't think anybody has done any outright comparisons. It falls down to how comfortable you are with decorating your entities with attributes. Fluent NHibernate is aimed at letting you use NHibernate with a completely unpolluted model, while attributes require you to alter your entities; this is a persistence concern leaking into your domain. Whether that's a problem for you is whether you should choose attributes or not.

Fluent NHibernate also throws a few more things to the table than just mappings. There's also the auto mappings which allow you to automatically map your domain. There's the conventions support which allow you to greatly reduce repetition in your design. I won't repeat everything, but you can read more on the Fluent NHibernate wiki.