Hi all, In 0.10.1.0, we removed the beta label from the new Java consumer documentation and updated the various tools so that they can use the new consumer without having to pass the `--new-consumer` flag (more specifically the new consumer is used if `bootstrap-server` is set). More details of the reasoning can be found in the original discuss thread: http://search-hadoop.com/m/Kafka/uyzND1e4bUP1Rjq721
The old consumers don't have security or `offsetsForTimestamp` (KIP-79) support and the plan is to only add features to the new Java consumer. Even so, the old consumers are a significant maintenance burden as they duplicate protocol request/response classes (the SimpleConsumer exposes them in the public API sadly). I experienced this first hand most recently while working on KIP-74. Given the above, I propose we deprecate the old consumers in trunk to nudge users in the right direction. Users will have the 0.10.1.0 cycle to start migrating to the new Java consumer with no build warnings. Once they upgrade to the next release (i.e. 0.10.2.0), users who are still using the old consumers will get warnings at build time encouraging them to move to the new consumer, but everything will still work fine. In a future major release, the old consumers (along with the old producers) will be removed. We will have a separate discuss/vote thread for that to make sure the time is right. Thoughts? Ismael
