Re: scalax.logging

On 2008-05-26 20:36:52 Andrew Foggin wrote:
> I'm just catching up on a big backlog.  Is adding a dependency on
> slf4j (or anything else outside core Java and Scala libraries)
> desirable?  I'm not sure that it is.

I think that we certainly want to keep dependencies to a minimum. We
definitely should depend only on mature and well-known libraries. We
also need to ensure that (runtime) dependencies do not have licenses
more strict that our own. But I think that to avoid dependencies
completely is counter to the overall goal of being useful.

> Personally I'm not keen on the proliferation of logging apis.  
> commons-logging is a pet hate of mine - although I haven't looked at
> slf4j I'm assuming the intent is the same.

Pretty much. Essentially our problems are:
- We are going to want to do logging within Scalax
- Logging is exactly the sort of common need that Scalax seeks to
address.
- Writing yet another logging API just to avoid a dependency stinks.

Thanks to the utter incompetence of the JSR47 group, that avenue is not
an option. SLF4J is the successor to Log4j, and seems to be the best of
a bad bunch (more specifically, the combination of SLF4J with Logback
is the successor to Log4j, but SLF4J also supports other backends).

/J