Hi Guozhang,
bq. I'm not sure I understand you statement that it is used to determine the "version" of the record I do not mean that it is "used", but if what you meant is that you would prefer to use that field instead of a header? This is in relation to a previous point of yours: >>> 1) I'm also in favor of making the `timestamp` a preserved config value >>> along with `offset`, for which we would not go into the headers to look for >>> the matching key, but directly look into the timestamp field of the message. bq. Regarding the byte arrays: I think byte arrays are indeed comparable, right? As far as I am aware, they are not comparable. Then again, I am not aware of everything that exists everywhere :) I just experimented with the code you mentioned and get super-inconsistent results, which make me reluctant to rely on it: https://codebunk.com/b/704211525/ Thank you again for the comments.
