Make experiment tracking optional

[astrojuanlu]

Description

One year ago #1831 we discussed the possibility of removing Experiment Tracking.

We have been reluctant to do it because we see some users using it.

But having it is an ongoing maintenance cost.

Hence one first step we can do is make it optional. This would alleviate some of the startup costs as well as reduce the amount of dependencies installed.

Possible Implementation

2 steps:

1. Folks have to explicitly opt into exp tracking at installation time, pip install kedro-viz[experiment]
2. Folks need to launch Kedro-Viz with exp tracking enabled, kedro viz run --enable-experiment-tracking

Possible Alternatives

?

Checklist

• Include labels so that we can categorise your feature request

[rashidakanchwala]

Also, try to decouple experiment tracking from flowchart.

[astrojuanlu]

What would #2079 involve? Just separating the dependencies or also removing stuff from the UI? Do we have any sort of estimation of that work? I'm just wondering if it's worth the effort. Do we have any evidence that people don't use Viz because this feature exists, or that people find Viz is "too large" because of experiment tracking? Otherwise there won't be much user gain by just making it optional compared to having it there by default.

Originally posted by @merelcht in #2152 (comment)

[astrojuanlu]

This is mostly for us to

1. start decoupling the feature before deciding what to do with it (to avoid refactoring something that we'll eventually drop (Refactor Kedro-Viz FAST API app creation #2061 (comment)), and
2. having an explicit way to measure who wants the feature. At the moment we rely on frontend telemetry that is yet poorly understood Review and explain frontend telemetry #2140

Do we have any evidence that people don't use Viz because this feature exists

FTR, we do not.

[rashidakanchwala]

I can do a spike on some of the questioned Merel mentioned because I am also not sure if it's worth the effort making it optional/removing it.

[astrojuanlu]

After weighing pros and cons, we decided against this. We're removing the feature instead.