[geophile]

Yes, this is exactly right. What a fucking nightmare. Every time I need to set up java logging for a new project, update a project, revisit an old project, I am dragged back to logging configuration hell.

Which logging package do I use? What is the logging config file called and where do I put it? How do I specify it? What do I do if different packages use different packages? A logging layer on TOP of other logging packages only makes things worse.

I'm sure many Java people remember the XML library hell. Each time you integrated another package that relied on XML configuration, you had to be sure to have the right version of the xerces library. Except that XML was simpler because XML itself didn't change that much. Logging is much worse.

To go on an even longer rant: Everything has become so fractured and distributed in the name of good modularity. Except that the interfaces are underspecified, or if adequately specified, they keep wiggling around. And good luck finding documentation to help you configure. It's got to match your version of every component, or you will likely fail. I am working on a project involving jetty, a Postgres database, a JDBC connection pool, and a logging system. Absolutely conventional stuff. I spent a couple of DAYS trying to do things the right way, doing XML config of everything. I absolutely could not make it work. I finally wrote my own trivial connection pool and configured everything in code. Took half an hour, done. I don't care that I can't swap out my logging system at runtime. That's a stupid thing to do anyway. When I need to change my connection pool, I will modify my code configuring it and re-deploy. The slightly improved flexibility is just not worth the fragility and maintenance headaches of doing things the "right" way.

[m4dc4pXXX]

It's even more fun when your project uses native libraries, with their own logging, that you can't seem to override at all. (Looking at Mesos, right now.)