Which Accessor Style? "Fluent" vs. "Java Bean"

Basically, there are two styles of accessor naming convention in Java.

One is the traditional “Java Bean” style.

public class Item {
    ItemType getType();
}

Another is called the “fluent” style.

public class Item {
    ItemType type();
}

The fluent style saves some typing when writing code, also makes code a bit less verbose, item.type().

For example, the Lombok library supports this fluent style.

lombok.accessors.fluent = [true | false] (default: false)
If set to true, generated getters and setters will not be prefixed with the bean-standard ‘get, is or set; instead, the methods will use the same name as the field (minus prefixes).

Which style is better?

Actually, the verbose Java Bean style, is the better one. It’s because a lot of third party libraries are acknowledging the Java Bean style. For example, if Item is going to be serialized by the Jackson library as a JSON string, the fluent style wouldn’t work out of the box. Also, most of DTO mapping libraries are using the Java Bean style too. Therefore, using the standard Java Bean accessor style save effort when integrate our classes with other libraries and frameworks.

With the Lombok library and the auto-completion in modern IDEs, the Java Bean style doesn’t necessarily mean more typing.