Why is Spring's ApplicationContext.getBean considered bad?

Question

I asked a general Spring question: Auto-cast Spring Beans and had multiple people respond that calling Spring\'s ApplicationContext.getBean() should be avoided

Answer 1

I've only found two situations where getBean() was required:

Others have mentioned using getBean() in main() to fetch the "main" bean for a standalone program.

Another use I have made of getBean() are in situations where an interactive user configuration determines the bean makeup for a particular situation. So that, for instance, part of the boot system loops through a database table using getBean() with a scope='prototype' bean definition and then setting additional properties. Presumably, there is a UI that adjusts the database table that would be friendlier than attempting to (re)write the application context XML.

Answer 2

You should to use: ConfigurableApplicationContext instead of for ApplicationContext