Why not convert all methods that can take Options to varargs? Example: cache.get(Fqn f, Object key, Option... o); You can then call it with or without option, i.e.: cache.get("a/b/c", "k"); And also like this: Option myOption = ... | cache.get("a/b/c", "k", myOption); Even better now, you can define individual Option as subsclasses/implementations of Option allowing each to carry extra parameters if needed. For example: Let's imagine that for https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBCACHE-1470 we would like to add the cache listener class to the supress event notification. You could do something like this: SupressEvenNotificationOption seno = ....; // SupressEvenNotificationOption implements Option | seno.setCacheListener(MyListener.class); | cache.put("a/b/c", "k", "v", seno); This looks much cleaner to me and you avoid multiple method definitions in Cache API. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4205679#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...