Is TimeSpan.Infinite the best default aggregation default for console exporter?

[tomkerkhove]

Question

Describe your environment.

Local development

What are you trying to achieve?

I was creating a POC to use OpenTelemetry metrics and couldn't get it to work. After trying a lot of things, it turns out that the default aggregation interval is TimeSpan.Infinite.

This means that, by default, the metrics will only be exported when the application shuts down (if the MetricProvider is disposed properly)

Wouldn't it make more sense to use 5 min as a default? What was the reasoning behind this?

[pellared]

when do we deal with infinity? There's always some limit somewhere

By @yurishkuro 😉

[alanwest]

Good question. I agree Timeout.Infinite does not make much sense. The spec seems to suggest we should use 60 seconds.

The OTLP exporter currently has a default of 1 second. I think both console and OTLP should use 60 seconds as default.

[tomkerkhove]

60 sounds reasonable to me! I'm happy to send a PR for the console one if you are open for it @cijothomas?

[cijothomas]

@tomkerkhove I am afraid its not a simple change Infinite to 60 sec.
See #2641 (comment)

[tomkerkhove]

Thank you!