[Python-Dev] Re: logging package -- spurious package contents

[Guido van Rossum]

> > The submodule logging/config.py contains code that I feel should not
> > be there.  I experimented with the config file format it implements,
> > and it appears very painful.
> 
> It's not ideal, but a ConfigParser-based format seemed the thing to use
> since it's already part of Python. You don't need to specify things twice -
> that's a side effect of using the GUI configurator to create a config file.
> (N.B. The GUI configurator is not part of the package proper.) For a
> handler, you need only specify the class, the level, the formatter, and the
> args for the constructor.
> 
> I agree that the config file format documentation leaves a lot of room for
> improvement. But it's not as bad as all that, once you get past the original
> irritation.
> 
> > Since configuring the logging package with a few programmatic calls is
> > so easy, and applications that need serious logging configurability
> > typically already have some configuration mechanism, I propose to drop
> > this from the Python distribution.
> 
> -0.
> 
> > I'm similarly not convinced of the utility of the logging/handlers.py
> > submodule, but I've never tried to use it, so lacking any particular
> > negative experience all I can say against it is YAGNI.
> 
> -1. That may be because you've never yet wanted to do anything other than
> log to console or file. I think it should be left in as without it, logging
> is most definitely not "batteries included". For example, it provides
> syslog, socket, datagram, email, HTTP and memory-buffering handlers.
> 
> Perhaps these questions could be asked on python-list? I am aware of many
> users who use the handlers in the logging.handlers module (though there are
> fewer who have given feedback about the config capability).

I'm willing to keep these things if you fix the documentation.  The
documentation for the whole module is currently in a rather sorry
state.  Example: "Using the package doesn't get much simpler." is more
sales talk than documentation, and the example following that phrase
produces less and different output than quoted.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)