Why so complicated? The setter with a return value doesn't break anything if you don't use the return value! Why stick to conventions without benefit and introducing additonal components to come around with it? I would vote for the setXXX with returning the object approach proposed by Tom... View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4195138#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...