Github user fhueske commented on the issue:
https://github.com/apache/flink/pull/4183
Hi @sunjincheng121, that's very good input for the discussion!
1. I would like to avoid to unnecessarily change the API and to deprecate
methods and parameters. IMO, `firstResultTimeOffset` is a better name because
it describes that there is an offset in time to compute the first result. Also,
configuring early firing and deferred computation would be possible (from an
API point of view) if we have a dedicated parameter for each feature. So we
would need to check if both parameters are set and throw an exception. If we
only have a single parameter `firstResultTimeOffset` there can be no invalid
configuration because you either compute an early or deferred result.
2.1. Yes, it is possible to emit records with correct (i.e., window end)
timestamps and this is what we should do.
2.2. I think we cannot rely on the fact that other operators support
deferred computation. First, this would force us to implement this for all
time-based operators (like over windows and later joins). Second, if we convert
a table with a deferred group window aggregation back into a DataStream, all
records of the stream would be late. I just had a discussion with @aljoscha
about this issue. Holding back watermarks is not really possible in Flink and
adjusting watermarks after a window operator incrementally adds latency.
@sunjincheng121 I think you are right about the adjustment of the
watermarks. The only approach that doesn't add more latency than the offset is
to subtract the offset from the watermarks at all sources. We would not need to
add any custom triggers and all operators (including future ones) would
immediately support deferred computation.
What do you think @sunjincheng121 and @wuchong?
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