One of the major implementaiton complaints I have about Cocoon is its lack of Log4J logging functionality. Log4j, is without a doubt the best logging package for java. No other package can even hope to compare to it. If Cocoon was built to use Log4j instead of the avalon logging mechanism, it would gain an enormous amount of functionality that it lacks now.
Personally, when working in a production environment, I dont want my log files to be put into direcroies in my web app. Id rather have them forwarded to a central log accumulation server or even sent out via JMS. Log4j allows this and many more configurations. Furthermore, it allows you to turn on and off logging on individual components with ease. Finally, Log4J is used in so many other products that it is a recognized standard logging mechanism that many organizations and even network engineers are quite familiar with. Therefore, I think Cocoon should migrate to Log4j. In order to contemplate this, its important that we discuss the complexities of it in the following quesitons. 1) Why has this not already been done? Is it a question of a lack of manpower or expertise? If so then I as well as others would most likely be happy to volunteer time to accomplish it. 2) How difficult is it to rip out the avalon logging from the cocoon core components? Im no avalon expert so I couldnt answer this myself. 3) Is there standard expressions that can be used for locatting logging lines in cocoon? 4) Do we upgrade some of the blocks or leave them as is and only upgrade core cocoon? I would be interested in comments and opinions. -- Robert
