Advantages of JavaBeans

Using JavaBeans in the Java program allows us to encapsulate many objects into a single object called a bean. Java is an object-oriented programming language that makes the develop once, run and reuse the program everywhere most important.

However, JavaBeans add reusability into the Java program by maintaining a single object encapsulating many data members and member functions. In other words, we can say that a JavaBean is a platform-independent component that allows us to reuse the class object in our Java code. For example, swing and AWT classes are the JavaBeans. Consider the following example that contains a simple JavaBean.

public class Employee {
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private int id;
private String phoneNumber;
private String address;

public void setfirstName(String firstName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
}
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}

public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}

public void setId(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}

public void setPhoneNumber(String phoneNumber) {
this.phoneNumber = phoneNumber;
}
public String getPhoneNumber() {
return phoneNumber;
}

public void setAddress(String address) {
this.address = address; 
}
public String getAddress() {
return address;
}	
}

In the above example, the Employee class is a JavaBean that contains private data members that are being get and set by using public member functions. JavaBeans can be accessed by creating its object and using the member functions to access private data members.

In the above example, we can see,

JavaBeans uses various setter and getter methods to make the other classes access the data members.
JavaBeans have various properties that can either be read or written.
JavaBeans provide a default constructor.

There are various advantages of a JavaBean that are as follows.

1. Exposure to other applications

One of the most important advantages of a JavaBean is, the events properties and the methods of a bean can be exposed directly to another application.

2. Registration to receive events

A JavaBean can be registered to receive events from other objects. However, we can also generate events that can be sent to other objects.

3. Ease of configuration

We can easily use auxiliary software to configure the JavaBean. However, we can also save the configuration setting of a JavaBean to persistent storage.

4. Portable

As JavaBeans are built in Java, we can easily port them to any other platform that contains JRE.

5. Lightweight

JavaBeans are light weighted, I.e., we don't need to fulfill any special requirement to use it. Also, it is very easy to create them. However, it doesn't need a complex system to register components with JRE.

The other advantages of JavaBeans include reusability, deployment, and customization that can be archived using JavaBeans.

However, there are a few disadvantages of JavaBeans, which are its mutability, which makes it not working with Immutable Objects. Also, creating a setter and getter for each property in a class may lead to a boilerplate code.

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