[boost] A meta-proposal for logging

From: Austin Bingham (abingham_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-02 09:18:19

The recent discussions about a logging library have been wonderful, 
and they demonstrate the strengths of the boost approach. These 
discussions have also demonstrated that logging is a lot more complex 
than many of us would have probably anticipated. It seems that a) 
everyone wants logging and that b) no one can agree on what it is. I 
think that a lot of this stems from the fact that logging encompasses 
many competing facets (e.g. thread-safety v. performance v. macros: 
evil or really evil? v. the kitchen sink) and these are, naturally, 
difficult to completely grok and balance. 
 
So, what I'm proposing is that we step back and do some sort of 
requirements analysis.  I don't mean anything terribly formal, but 
rather some place where we can try to centralize our ideas on what 
a logging library comprises. Trying to use the list archives to keep 
track of every variation of every aspect of logging is error-prone and 
frustrating, but something like a wiki would make it much easier to 
present the totality of everyone's input. 
 
As we collect and organize our thoughts, I'm hoping that a less murky 
picture of what we should do will emerge. What are the orthogonal 
aspects of logging, and which are intertwined? Are there different 
paradigms of logging that we should treat as distinct? What are the 
apparent tradeoffs of different concerns, and are there some concerns 
that appear in conflict but which really aren't? 
 
My sense is that, as we really clarify what all of the concerns are, 
we'll have a better shared sense of what everyone's looking for. We'll 
have a sort of lingua franca or common starting point from which to 
develop boost logging. Jean Daniel's recent work on organizing input 
from the Torjo review is a brilliant start to this kind of effort. 
 
So, these are just my thoughts on the issue. I would *love* to see a 
logging library in boost, and it always frustrates me (and, I imagine, 
others) that we can't seem to agree on often the simplest 
things. Maybe I'm way off target here, but I think a little high-level 
organization could yield big dividends in this case. 
 
--
Austin Bingham
Signal & Information Sciences Laboratory
Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin
10000 Burnet Rd., Austin, TX 78758
email:  abingham_at_[hidden]
cell:   [phone]
office: [phone]