J2EE™ and Beyond: Design, Develop, and Deploy World-Class Java™ Software

Introduction

The process of application logging has rarely been at the forefront of project design. On many projects, modules to write log files were eventually created, but often the format, consistency, and frequency with which the logs were used varied depending on the developer. Different development groups often used different logging APIs. In addition to the sometimes inconsistent usage, there has always been a debate concerning logging. Many developers feel that logging can slow an application.

Using a good, consistent, and efficient standardized logging API can help prevent these problems. Several good logging APIs are now available for use with the Java language. The Apache Jakarta project has spawned two good APIs: the log4j logging ...