Re: [boost] A meta-proposal for logging

From: Andrey Semashev (andysem_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-03 15:49:04

Hello Austin,

Tuesday, April 3, 2007, 10:55:49 PM, you wrote:

>>    I can't disagree more with this. IMO, logging is not at all a way to
>> give information to the program user. In my mind, a logging library is 
>> intended only for debugging, journaling, auditing and performance 
>> measuring. Not a way to display error message or waiting message to the 
>> user. In my mind, these are totally different things. Please someone, 
>> give his POV on this, I think this is a major disagreement.

> You're probably going to find yourself in the minority here. In many 
> instances, a log might be the only way communicate an error to the
> user; consider, say, a webserver or NFS lock daemon. More generally, I
> think that a generally useful logging system will be able to handle
> arbitrary logging and won't be concerned with domains or specific
> usage patterns.

I agree with Austin. I think, the "user" word is what confused you.
The "user" here may be a system administrator or a technical support
service specialist, for example. Such users have enough knowledge
about the application that produced the log, so they are able to read
it and figure out the problem. Though they are not interested in the
internals of the application which only developer knows (i.e. they
wouldn't understand what "i = 10, too bad :(" log record means).

On the other hand, I believe such functionality may be easily achieved
with proper filtering and providing separate sinks for these types of
output. Michael, do you agree with me?

-- 
Best regards,
 Andrey                            mailto:andysem_at_[hidden]