Trace fields and the "app." prefix about beeline-python

[toshok]

Why can't the beeline just "do what I say"? The Python beeline already does this for context fields.

good questions, and definitely ones we wrung our hands about.

It's all about ownership of field names/namespaces, really. versioning of beelines is already a tricky matter, and one thing we've pretty intentionally steered away from so far is "what happens to the version of a beeline when field names change?" it's a breaking change in terms of instrumentation (existing queries, triggers, boards, etc, can all break), but not an api breaking change.

The problem is greatly exacerbated if there's no separation between beeline-owned fields and user-owned fields, because there's no guarantee that a given user won't already be using a name that we might want to add.

that said - nobody around here is I think particularly in love with app.. maybe there's a better way.

[ajvondrak]

it's a breaking change in terms of instrumentation (existing queries, triggers, boards, etc, can all break), but not an api breaking change.

Oh yeah, that's a really good point. Continuity of name changes on the query side would be annoying to handle. Though I guess with something like the auto prefixing there may be an expectation for upgraders to go into their code and manually add the app.s. But that's also an imposition on current users.

The problem is greatly exacerbated if there's no separation between beeline-owned fields and user-owned fields, because there's no guarantee that a given user won't already be using a name that we might want to add.

Makes sense. Guess I'd been thinking about it in the opposite direction: overriding things the beeline is trying to do automatically (e.g., honeycombio/beeline-ruby#66).

that said - nobody around here is I think particularly in love with app.. maybe there's a better way.

Figured y'all had thought about it, but good to know I'm not totally barking up the wrong tree. 🙂

[mollystamos123]

I have another request to remove the app. prefix in the Python beeline. The request is to consider taking a prefix= argument that is set to app. by default, but can be overridden.

[JamieDanielson]

Hello,

We will be closing this issue as it is a low priority for us. It is unlikely that we'll ever get to it, and so we'd like to set expectations accordingly.

As we enter 2022 Q1, we are trimming our OSS backlog. This is so that we can focus better on areas that are more aligned with the OpenTelemetry-focused direction of telemetry ingest for Honeycomb.

If this issue is important to you, please feel free to ping here and we can discuss/re-open.