Re: They missed a trick
capturing extra information,
On a few occasions I've written programs/scripts that have a logging element to them. As the programmer, I decide what and how much is being logged. If I decide that my program will log stuff-all (if anything) then you have little or no chance of seeing this. How can the addition of binary logging change this? How can it change this in a way that cannot be done with other tools? And is the extra information it captures worthwhile information, or is it like the system error logs that "Microsoft Internet Services" so love to point elderly ladies to when they're trying to steal their money "fix the viruses on their computer internet"? Sometimes "extra information" can be a problem and can lead someone away from a solution.
better indexing,
And when the index gets corrupted at the time of a major failure? You know, when sequential logs are quite important? How would a binary index help anyway? Seriously. I've spent a lot of time with my head buried in piles of logs seeking answers to problems. Either they're there quickly and a glance can see what is going on (eg a web page not displaying, Apache's log shows that there's a permissions problem and I can go in and fix it) or they're something that can require a lot more reading. Being able to scroll down a file is much faster than having to load in a record each time you want to read a new line.
Grep or search functions have been the only "index" I've needed when things go wrong. Well them and Google, but google is for finding answers to why I am seeing the content in the log, not for reading the log. And the content of the logs have always been plenty enough, often excessive. I can't recall a time when I've had insufficient logs to fix a problem (insufficient knowledge, sure, but not insufficient logs!). Caveat : I've not had to fix a lot of Linux stuff, which is a huge reason why I use it and love it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
