Is it bad practice to make a setter return “this”?

Question

Is it a good or bad idea to make setters in java return \"this\"?

public Employee setName(String name){
   this.name = name;
   return this;
}

Answer 1

At least in theory, it can damage the optimization mechanisms of the JVM by setting false dependencies between calls.

It is supposed to be syntactic sugar, but in fact can create side effects in the super-intelligent Java 43's virtual machine.

That's why I vote no, don't use it.