title: I have no log file, yet I must scream link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/i-have-no-log-file-yet-i-must-scream/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 311 created: 2009/06/13 15:21:42 created_gmt: 2009/06/13 15:21:42 comment_status: open post_name: i-have-no-log-file-yet-i-must-scream status: publish post_type: post

I have no log file, yet I must scream

Very entertaining and informative post with the above “alternate title” by a developer who lays bare one of the core issues in software development, at least from this old sysadmin’s perspective.

Sometimes, when writing a program, you feel compelled to make the program emit some output which is peripheral to its operation. The question is - who wants to know about that information?

Maybe you’re debugging the program, and you insert a simple ‘print’ statement to get some information about it. Maybe your program is a network server, and you are recording the fact that a message was received and processed. Maybe you’re maintaining an old library routine, and you want it to emit a message that points to a newer, better version of that routine which is now preferred. Finally, regardless of what kind of program you’re writing, maybe it has produced an error that a user or administrator will need to deal with, and you would like to show it to them.

This activity is referred to in several different contexts depending on how the messages are delivered, but it is most commonly known as “logging”. It is critical to the operation of many, many different kinds of programs. Unfortunately, it is one of the most poorly-understood and poorly-implemented areas of software in general. Software is a veritable cornucopia of poorly-understood and poorly-implemented ideas, so that’s really saying something.

Even for an amateur programmer like me, the article provided valuable insight into not only the problems with most logging mechanisms, but also some practical suggestions on how to alleviate the pain they inevitably can cause.

(this is the only movie I ever saw that really scared the * out of me: of course I hadn’t started law school yet, and so was unfamiliar with what it was like to be truly terrified)

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