Hi all, We are thinking of getting rid of the "delete forward" misfeature in HBase. The one way we'd implement it would permanently remove this "feature", and prevent it from being put back in ever.
What is a delete forward you ask? This is where you do a delete, but because deletes are really just inserting 'tombstones', it applies to future Puts. This can be immensely frustrating because puts appear to do nothing. These rogue deletes get pruned out when the table is major compacted, so it isn't forever. Because of the transient nature of these delete forwards, we suspect, but do not know, if anyone is depending on this behaviour. If you use this behaviour, please chime in so we can get a sense of what people need! Thanks! -ryan
