Hey,
I wanted to ask that after selecting desirable external library how should I proceed:
1. Should I stick to the existing debugging facility in which filtering of log messages is based on debug level comparisons of various FreeType's components and only use the external library to write log messages to file instead of stderr?
OR
2. Most external libraries provide some log levels capabilities themselves, so, should I think in direction of utilizing those. In case yes, then how should that be utilized?
I recommend not baking details of the logging library into the rest of FreeType whenever possible. One thing that can be done is to send structured logs from FreeType, i.e. instead of FT_Message() sending a string to whatever log, the function could instead send a (component, level, message) tuple, which would allow filtering externally (in the log library, through whatever means are necessary). Also something useful when tracing is scoping traces with start/stop events, but that would require new FT_TRACE_XXX() macros, so should probably be considered a stretch goal. Just keep this in mind if you intend to modify that part of the code.
In the 2nd case, FreeType's logger will completely depend on the external library, and developers will also need to learn some new information to use the logger. And In the worst-case scenario, if the external library drops some functionality, we will need to make amendments to the logger.
I still don't know what the benefits of these external logging libraries will be. Can you clarify what are we supposed to gain from this in practical terms? Every dependency we add to the library becomes a maintenance burden, so I would be in favor of the least coupling possible.
According to me, the 1st option is better since the experience of using the logger will be the same for the client and developers and the only dependency of FreeType on external library will be of writing log messages to a file.
Please guide me...
Thanks
Priyesh