Salesforce's { get; set; } syntax has been around for a long time and is a time-tested, reliable way to define properties in Apex. But after testing its usability and limitations in Spring '17, I've decided that explicitly declaring traditional getter and setter methods should be preferred over using the convenient { get; set; } syntax.
The primary reason is that the only way to expose a property in a custom Apex class for use with Lightning Components is to use the @AuraEnabled annotation, and this annotation only works on a traditional getter method such as String getName().
The secondary reason is that the developer also has the option to either call the getter or access the private field directly from other methods in the class, which is not possible when using { get; set; }.
