[slf4j-dev] Is slf4j a community project or just open source?

[Ceki Gulcu]

Hello Michael,

Comments below.

Newcomb, Michael-P57487 wrote:
> I ask this because there seems to be several suggestions/enhancements
> that get shot down by the slf4j crew as 'too hard' etc...
> 
> Those argument/excuses simply don't fly in community projects because
> someone is always willing to do them. I'm not talking about changing the
> whole api, I completely agree with taking those types of changes slow
> and cautiously, however...
> 
> My own bug/enhancement request
> (http://bugzilla.slf4j.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74) is to simply add the
> following to code to log4j bridge...
> 
> Level getLevel()
> {
>   return slf4jLogger.isTraceEnabled() ? Level.TRACE :
>     slf4jLogger.isDebugEnabled() ? Level.DEBUG :
>     slf4jLogger.isInfoEnabled() ? Level.INFO :
>     slf4jLogger.isWarnEnabled() ? Level.WARN : Level.ERROR;
> }
> 
> It was promptly closed with the excuse:
> 
> "Given that Category class in log4j-over-slf4j is merely a wrapper
> around an
> SLF4J logger, and given that SLF4J loggers do not have a level, it is
> impossible to implement the getLevel() method.

There is a small yet significant detail which deserves a rectification.
Initially, the bug report included a request for add getLevel() to Category in 
log4j-over-slf4j module. I responded with the following:

   Given that Category class in log4j-over-slf4j is merely a wrapper around an
   SLF4J logger, and given that SLF4J loggers do not have a level, it is
   impossible to implement the getLevel() method.

Thus, I genuinely believed that the request could not be implemented. As your 
*later* contribution showed, the getLevel could be easily implemented. Thus, I 
misread the feasibility of the request. However, your patch came after the 
request. It was the request that was shut down and not the patch. I hope that 
your will find this distinction significant and also reassuring as how 
contributions are handled.

To summarize, SLF4J is a community project with very imperfect participants. :-)


> Moreover, as mentioned in the docs [1], log4j-over-slf4j is not a
> perfect log4j
> API replacement."
> 
> 'Impossible'? It would take about 5 seconds to get that into the
> baseline and it would not harm the bridge at all. In fact it would make
> it a little more complete.

Indeed.

> So, I'd like to know if the slf4j project is a community effort or just
> an open source project.

As mentioned above, I thought that the request was not possible to fulfill.

Anyway, to answer your question about the nature of the SLF4J project, I am 
thrilled by the active participation by developers such as yourself, Joern 
Huxhorn, Sebastian Davids, Maarten Bosteels, John E. Conlon and others. More 
concretely, if you would like to commit the code into SVN yourself, it would be 
possible to grant you commit access onto the SLF4J subversion repository. Is 
that something you'd be interested in?

-- 
Ceki Gülcü
QOS.ch is looking to hire talented developers in Switzerland.  If
interested, please contact c e k i AT q o s . c h