Delivered-To: cgu@qos.ch
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From: "Balaji Kithiganahalli" <balaji_92@hotmail.com>
To: kgh@eng.sun.com
Cc: cgu@qos.ch
Subject: Re: Log4J as standard logging mechanism
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:31:07 -0400
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Jun 2001 13:31:07.0786 (UTC) FILETIME=[EE468EA0:01C0F7FA]

Mr Graham Hamilton, Thanks for your prompt reply. Also appreciate all the effort and good things your are putting in making java a successful language. But one thing i dont understand is that this logging APIs are depended on JDK 1.4. Why isn't this backward compatible. If that is not possible to provide, It make very much sense to support the Log4j which is also widely used by the developers.
regards
Balaji K Kithiganahalli
(Balaji_92@hotmail.com


From: Graham Hamilton <kgh@eng.sun.com>
To: Balaji Kithiganahalli <balaji_92@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Log4J as standard logging mechanism
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 12:29:37 -0700

Balaji,

Thanks for your interest in the logging APIs.

In the hope that it may be useful, here's a little history
on how we got where we are.

As Ceki noted, IBM has been a very active participant in the
JSR-047 logging JSR.  When the logging JSR was initiated in
January 2000, IBM had both the log4j work at IBM research and
the JLog work at IBM Tivoli.  The Tivoli work built on IBM's
earlier product logging experience.  IBM's involvement in
JSR-047 was focused on their JLog experience which had seen
a lot of use in IBM products.

However, Ceki also provided useful input from log4j, and that
has influenced some parts of the logging APIs.

In designing the APIs we've tried to draw from numerous
sources and we've tried to support a wide set of requirements.
It's inevitable that when there is a new standardization
effort it will make some different choices from some of
the existing APIs.  We went through a similar experience
with JDBC.  It built on a bunch of earlier work, but it
wasn't exactly like any of them.  Unfortunately we delayed
adding a JDK logging API for too long, and I think it
is important that we resolve that in Merlin.

Unfortunately we are quite late in the Merlin cycle and
we can't really accommodate major API changes at this point.
However, I will be studying Ceki's comments carefully.

                                         thanks
                                                  - Graham



Balaji Kithiganahalli wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> At the outset I would like to say that this is a personal request and not
> one from the company I work for. I don't represent the company at all in
> this matter nor the company shares this view.
>
> Sun seems to behave more and more like Microsoft by putting in more and more
> functionality in the java core programming language. On the whole this may
> help but most of the times this involves reinventing the wheel.
> Sun has been consistent in criticizing Microsoft along with a host of others
> on the integration that they keep doing with their Windows OS starting with
> browsers and now with media players and personal firewalls in the upcoming
> version of Windows XP... One consequence of this integration is that other
> third party software companies often find themselves out of business - like
> Netscape for instance and a host of other small ones.
> I would like Sun to stop reinventing the wheel and instead integrate the
> logging API from log4j into jdk 1.4 that will make older software easier to
> integrate and show Sun's commitment to Open Source and differentiate Sun
> from Microsoft.
>
> I also believe there are some fundamental flaws in the logging mechanism
> currently shipped with JDK 1.4. I believe that these are well summarised in
> the document
>   http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/docs/critique.html
>
> In particular, multiple debugging levels (FINE, FINER, FINEST) are very
> difficult to separate in real terms.
>
> Additionally, having looked through the source code of both Log4J and the
> associated JSR 47 specification, I believe that more work and test hours
> have gone into the Log4J rather than JSR specifications.
>
> As such, I believe that you should consider adopting the de-facto standard
> of Log4J as the logging utility in Java, rather than settle for second best.
>
> regards
> Balaji K Kithiganahalli
> Balaji_92@hotmail.com
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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