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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:07:31 +0530
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Subject: What is the future of supercolumns ?
From: Aklin_81 <asdkl93@gmail.com>
To: user@cassandra.apache.org
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I have seen supercolumns usage been discouraged most of the times.
However sometimes the supercolumns seem to fit the scenario most
appropriately not only in terms of how the data is stored but also in
terms of how is it retrieved. Some of the queries supported by SCs are
uniquely capable of doing the task which no other alternative schema
could do.(Like recently I asked about getting the equivalent of
retrieving a list of (full)supercolumns by name, through use of
composite columns, unfortunately there was no way to do this without
reading lots of extra columns).

So I am really confused whether:

1. Should I really not use the supercolumns for any case at all,
however appropriate, or I just need to be just careful while realizing
that supercolumns fit my use case appropriately or what!?

2. Are there any performance concerns with supercolumns even in the
cases where they are used most appropriately. Like when you need to
retrieve the entire supercolumns everytime & max. no of subcolumns
vary between 0-10.
(I don't write all the subcolumns inside supercolumn, at once though!
Does this also matter?)

3. What is their future? Are they going to be deprecated or may be
enhanced later?