Re: [boost] Re: TR2 and C++0x heads up

From: Caleb Epstein (caleb.epstein_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-25 21:21:56

On 4/23/05, Jeff Garland <jeff_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> --> logging
>
>  I realize we've had a bunch of discussion here, but i wonder if someone
>  should consider submitting log4cxx from apache
>  http://logging.apache.org/log4cxx/. No reason why boost has to the
>  the source of all the good libs ;-)

The various ports of "log4j" seem to take the approach of translating
the Java object model to C++ 1:1.  I don't think this is necessarily a
Good Thing.  I've personally looked at or used:

log4cxx (URL above) - Stable release is "substantially out of date,
has known serious deficiencies".  Unclear when next release will be
forthcoming.  Next release introduces dependency on APR (Apache
Portable Runtime) which may be too much baggage for some.

log4cpp (http://log4cpp.sourceforge.net/).  No stable releases since
Jan 2002.  Development release actually looks pretty good, but misses
some important (IMHO) appenders like RollingFileAppender.

log4cplus (http://log4cplus.sourceforge.net/).  Similarly devoid of
new releases but I think this is the most complete (and probably
largest) of the three.  I use it in production.

Each of these mirrors log4j quite closely, including the IMHO horrible
configuration syntax.  Each also seems to have lost maintainer-steam
as each has a number of missing features or imoprtant bugs.  My #1
criticism of all three, though, is that the log4j object model is
over-large and should not be the basis of a C++ logging framework.

Aside from having contributed a few snippets of code to John Torjo's
proposed Boost Logging library, I think it is already better than any
of these because it is a clean-room design and is more simple and
flexible for it.

-- 
Caleb Epstein
caleb dot epstein at gmail dot com