Another option is to remove experimental configurations from hbase-default.xml and maybe add a section to the manual that lists them or at least mentions that configurations found in code but not in hbase-default means 'no user serviceable parts inside', YMMV?
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Jean-Daniel Cryans <[email protected]>wrote: > Hey devs, > > I'd like to engage the community in a discussion about how we can > better identify configurations that are considered experimental. > > The current situation is that we usually don't talk about them too > much and users will find them while googling, reading the code or > hbase-defaults.xml. In the latter, we have configs that are marked as > experimental in their description. For example in 0.94 we have: > > <name>hbase.offheapcache.percentage</name> > <value>0</value> > <description> > The amount of off heap space to be allocated towards the experimental > off heap cache. If you desire the cache to be disabled, simply set > this > value to 0. > </description> > > Discussing with the other devs here, we thought we could use a simple > prefix to identify those configs so that it's really obvious that you > may be getting into unknown territory. For example: > > hbase.offheapcache.percentage => experimental.hbase.offheapcache.percentage > > A bunch of configs will have to be renamed like that, and for backward > compatibility we'll still have to accept both versions until they > graduate from being experimental but only document the one with the > prefix in hbase-defaults and the reference manual. > > For the new experimental configurations, we should just have the > version with the "experimental." prefix until it becomes > production-ready. > > Does that sound like a plan? I'm open to suggestions. > > Cheers, > > J-D > -- Best regards, - Andy Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. - Piet Hein (via Tom White)
