Re: System.out.println() vs Logging, was Re: JComboBox.setSelectedItem() doesn´t update selected Item?

Lew wrote:
RedGrittyBrick wrote:
- System.out.println() works
- it needs no special classes/jars bundled with your app.

Specious.


- it needs no class instantiation/initialisation

Neither does log4j unless you need the flexibility.

All the examples I've seen seem to involve something like
`static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(test.class);`


- Logging classes seem like they're oriented to making complex
logging needs possible. Few of them make simple jobs simple.

I have no idea how you came up with this. Logging libraries are dog-simple to use, about as complex as:

Logger logger = Logger.getLogger( getClass() );
...
logger.error( msg );

Can you just invoke methods statically like
Logger.error(msg);


- There's too many to choose from. Writing System.out.println()
a few dozen times takes a lot less gumption than studying a
half dozen logging classes and choosing one then using it.

I cannot believe you are touting ignorance as an excuse.

I didn't think I was :-)

Actually its a problem I've encountered more than once with Java. A recent example: I have a web-service written in Perl and wanted to test access to the service from Perl, C# and Java. I'd a little experience of Perl and Java but none of C#.

With Perl, THE way to do web services is to use SOAP::Lite. No need to research lots of options. A SOAP::Lite test client can be written in under a dozen lines of code.

With C#, I'd not written a line of C# before, but I downloaded Mono, read http://www.mono-project.com/Web_Services, wrote a dozen lines of C# and typed four commands and had a working client within an hour. I didn't have to research several toolkits and choose one.

With Java I've spent hours Googling and reading reviews and tutorials for what seemed like dozens of web-services toolkits. Most of it seemed ten times as much work as Perl or C#. It was hard to work out what was obsolete stuff and what was 'standard' for Java 6. I downloaded the latest Eclipse Web-Tools Platform and tried to generate a stub class from the WSDL but had problems. In the end I used the rather nasty approach suggested in http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-soapcl/ which I supplemented with a SAX parser, simply in order to avoid spending too much time learning something which was somewhat peripheral to the project.

Pathetic.

Cruel *** ;-)


Logging takes all of five minutes to learn.

I spent hours trying to find out what logging classes were available, which were widely used and whether any were a standard part of JRE 1.5.


You should actually learn to use, say, log4j, before you pass judgment. By admitting that you haven't learned either that nor java.util.logging, you admit that you do not have a basis for your judgment.

Try it, you'll like it.


I will try it, but I suspect I'll probably still use System.out.println() in small programs (one or two classes, < 200 LOC).




Appendix A:

Complete Perl web-services client

#!perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use SOAP::Lite;
print SOAP::Lite
->proxy('http://example.com/service')
->uri('Widgets')
->getWidgetDescription('Foo');


Complete C# web-services client (excluding stub generated from WSDL)

using System;
class GetWidgetDescription {
public static void Main(string [] args) {
WidgetService service = new WidgetService();
Console.WriteLine(service.getWidgetDescription("Foo"));
}
}

My real service returned arrays of objects but that didn't add significantly to the time taken to produce working Perl or C# clients with which to test the service.

Doubtless a Java client *can* be just as concise and easy to learn but the above were almost straight from the first tutorials I found. I've not found a simple Java tutorial that only uses classes that are part of the standard JRE.

.