The Open Source Zone

I really *wanted* this book to be an excellent logging book, because I would benefit by such a book. More than that, I would like to be able to (figuratively) throw a good logging book at developers needing one. While possessed of the necessary physical characteristics to do some damage when thrown, the low quality of the content of this book makes it unsuitable for chucking at developers needing logging guidance.

The prose is difficult to follow, the examples not-quite-lucid, the editing noticeably poor. The advice and analysis may not have ever made a lot of sense, but certainly by today's logging standards is off-base. (Treatment of Commons Logging is barely there, despite it being a prevalent logging framework API binding layer. Treatment of alternatives to Log4J addressing some of its classloader complexity is nonexistent. Logging considerations in application containers is absent.)

As much as I despise the pay-for-documentation model of monetizing open source, I have no alternative but to recommend that persons looking for a logging book purchase the log4j PDF, which is more comprehensive, more useful, and better edited than this unhelpful little volume. The log4j PDF largely treats no topics other than log4j, but it treats log4j very effectively. The book reviewed here attempts and fails to treat a broader range of topics.

This book does an excellent job to readers like me at intermediate level of programming. Step by step guide on both the logging APIS was good although I settled for Log4j finally. I was a bit surprised to see this book got a one star review from someone. This book certainly does better than that. Ihave not read the complete log4j manual (it is out of stock mostly) but apart from that I could not find any other material which does a better job!! My thanks to the author.

The only reason it is a 4 star to me is that there can be more on practical application of logging such as in EJB and all.

This book really helped me in terms of creating a logging strategy for the projects in my company. The author gives a very smooth ride through the different features of both the Logging APIs. Also it gives you ideas about how to extend the framework. Overall, I am very impressed with the book. The docs in the Apache website can be a starter but this book is required to decide a logging strategy for the organisation.<p>Thanks to the author<p>Pauline

I bought this book based on the review of Thomas Paul, who has supposedly read it. If he had read this book then he would still be suffering migranes like I am. Without a doubt the worse book on logging I have read. I really wanted to get into this book and write some of my own logging programs. My advice to anyone who wants to do the same is to go to the Jakarta website where they have much better documentation and its free! Save your money. don't buy this book unless you like to read to help you sleep.

As a developer looking for a more detailed reference/guide to technical usage and programming practices, this book falls short. My focus was log4j, and I found that most of the information is freely available from apache. No real value was added here. I expected at least an in depth compare-contrast between log4j and jdk logging, but this section was very terse. What would be a nice add would be a technical reference that would be one stop shop for syntax. The book didn't even provide a PatternLayout key of codes for logging items, that would be useful. <p>What we really need is a practical bridge between javadocs and this book, which is a high level academic overview.<p>I should have just gotten "The complete log4j manual", but I thought this might have been more extensive. I was wrong.