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

If I'm writing an API, I use "return this" to set values that will only be set once. If I have any other values that the user should be able to change, I use a standard void setter instead.

However, it's really a matter of preference and chaining setters does look quite cool, in my opinion.