is there an idiom for ignoring regions?

[BurntSushi]

To me, ignoring regions means that the "global IP" should always be used and the "local IP" should never be used. One sensible way to do this is to use the same region for every node (the empty string, perhaps) and always set the local and global IP addresses to be the same. However, judging by this code, the local IP ends up getting used. That's probably OK, but it does seem a little weird.

So I guess my question is: is this idiom acceptable? I think it might be cleaner to special case a zero value. For example, if the region is empty, then the global IP is always used. Or if the local IP is empty, then then global is always used.

I realize this is a small point, but I was slightly confused by it until I read the full story on what regions were.

[paddycarver]

There are two options: You can always set the local and global IPs to be the same, and it won't matter what the region is. The other option is to simply set the region to be the same as the Node ID (or another unique identifier), which will ensure the regions are always different, and therefore the global IP will always be used. Or a combination of the two.

This idiom is perfectly acceptable, assuming that's what you want. The regions are meant to make the cluster cheaper for people running it on Amazon EC2 and other cloud providers, and they aren't integral to the functioning of the cluster.

It may be a small point, but small points are important to get right. I'm going to have to think about what the default/empty value should be, and how to make things clearer and more intuitive.

Thanks for the feedback!