| Why the name "Logahawk"? |
|
Trees are cut down to get "logs", and in the olden days axes were used to cut
down trees. A type of axe designed by Native Americans is the
Tomahawk. While not used for cutting down
wood, the thought chain holds pretty well, hence the name Logahawk.
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| Why did you create such a library? |
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I have found logs to be an invaluable tool in the creation and maintainence of every kind
of application. But no logging frameworks I've ever used is as brain-dead simple for developers to
use. So I wrote wrappers around the logging frameworks to make them easier to use. Prior to Logahawk
I've written at least four different wrappers. The wrappers have always been well received by other
developers and stake holders, and made logging easy and ubiquitous. With ever iteration I've
evolved and enhanced the concept, making it more flexible and easier to use. Logahawk is the most
recent and advanced iteration.
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| Why did you choose the Apache License? |
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For two main reasons. The first reason is that log4j, arguably the most popular logging
framework, is licensed under the Apache License, and hence it makes licensing a non-issue for
projects that are already using the log4j. The second reason is that logging is more common in
high-availability and mission-critical applications, which are often custom solutions and hence
proprietary -- I did not want to make it difficult for those projects to use Logahawk.
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| How reliable/stable is Logahawk? |
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Quite. The logging wrappers that Logahawk is based on are use in mission critical, high-availability
systems. Logahawk was designed to be used in those same types of applications, where logs are not
just after-thoughts, they are the fore-thoughts.
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| What are the future plans for Logahawk? |
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More unit tests, more formatters, more listeners, etc. Currently there are no major plans or changes.
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| Logahawk doesn't appear to be updated very often... |
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That's because its stable and complete. I've implemented all of the features that I can concieve of.
The updates I do make are usually new ideas that come out of the blue or to meet the new needs of
other projects. Logahawk isn't abandoned, its simple stable and complete.
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| Where is the configuration file? Why is there no configuration file? |
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Initially I wanted to avoid conflicts with other frameworks configuration files, but now the case
rests with need. I personally am not convinced of the need to configure logging outside of the
application, at least not with the flexiblity that most logging frameworks provide. Most logging
I've seen only changes the priority level of deployed systems, and sometimes not even that.
Dynamically creating and customizing loggers seems like overkill. I have also found that the design
choice of a configuration file makes creating loggers by hand difficult and awkward. I wish to avoid
that situation. That being said I am not against building such functionality into Logahawk, but it
is not high on my priority list. If it is a highly desired item please let me know and I will
increase its priority.
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| Logahawk adds too much overhead! (Or Logahawk is slow!) |
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(Note: I've never received any word that Logahawk is actually slow, but I'll address the
potential concern anyways.)
Yes, Logahawk adds overhead, but the overhead is a trade-off to gain a better view into the
system. In fault intolerant systems it is usually much more valuable to have a good grasp on
what is happening then to worry about the few milliseconds lost in producing that better view.
I personally have never encountered a situation where the overhead outweights the gains.
Further, Logahawk is designed to centralize logging activities, so that any inefficiences can
be localized and optimized with in the logging framework instead of in the the application. I
am constantly on the look out for inefficiencies.
If performance is a problem the best option is to remove unnecessary
formatters, even using a
separate Logger instance that has only the formatters
you need. Also, everything in Logahawk is an interface so that you can replace any of
Logahawk's parts with your finely tuned implementations.
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| I see unrecognized files in the root, what are they? |
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IntelliJ project files. (See the next question.)
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| What development environment/IDE do you use? |
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I use IntelliJ, because I find it to be superior to
Eclipse and NetBeans.
Both Eclipse and NetBeans are good products, but in my opinion IntelliJ is better for Java
development.
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| I see unrecognized files in the /src/site, what are they? |
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Aptana Studio project files. (See the next question.)
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| What development environment/IDE do you use for the web site? |
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I use Aptana Studio because I'm not primarily a web developer and
needed a helping hand.
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