title: What does it mean to "proxy a bean"?
body: <p>At work and online I keep hearing the term "proxy" with respect to enterprise Java development. For example, <a href="https://github.com/ryantenney/metrics-spring" rel="noreferrer">metrics-spring</a> uses this phrase:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>This module does the following things:</p>
    
    <p>Creates metrics and <strong>proxies beans</strong> which contain methods annotated with
    @Timed, @Metered, @ExceptionMetered, and @Counted [emphasis mine]</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the language in the Java ecosystem of frameworks and libraries. I feel like I have a good understanding of <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3295496/what-is-a-javabean-exactly">what a bean is</a>, but I'm still not clear about how one would proxy a bean.</p>
  
  <p>What does it mean to proxy a bean?</p>