[OPEN-ILS-DEV] config.internal_flag vs. config.global_flag

[Dan Scott]

I'm curious about the difference in the intended uses of the
config.internal_flag table vs. the config.global_flag table in trunk. 

  * config.global_flag inherits from config.internal_flag and adds a
TEXT column for labels
  * values in config.global_flag are exposed via a Dojo configuration
interface

Following are the current config.internal_flag values:

 ('ingest.metarecord_mapping.skip_on_insert');
 ('ingest.reingest.force_on_same_marc');
 ('ingest.disable_located_uri');
 ('ingest.disable_metabib_full_rec');
 ('ingest.disable_metabib_rec_descriptor');
 ('ingest.disable_metabib_field_entry');

It looks like these internal flags are primarily intended to enable an
admin to speed up a bulk ingest operation by enabling the database to
load the records without firing all of the ingest triggers (no doubt to
be followed by turning all of the ingest triggers back on and forcing
the records to be ingested once the database is loaded).

If these are flags that are intended to be used by humans at some point,
shouldn't we just make them global flags so that their values can be
easily inspected and some context for their use provided by the label
field? I understand that the wrong setting for these flags could result
in significant problems, but we already give people plenty of means to
misconfigure their system.

(Aside: if settings-tester.pl is still considered a useful tool for
debugging system problems, it might make sense to dump the contents of
the config.internal_flag & other settings tables like OU settings,
etc... just a thought).