[windup-dev] Forge-related issues - logging, exceptions

[Ondrej Zizka]

Hi,

it's so adventurous to develop something with limited or no access to 
information on what's happening in runtime.

When I get some exception, it's typically something like:
org.jboss.....WindupException$----$javassist@!#4138329859842740987598974105762985734109852984675091: 
null
       at org.jboss.forge.FooClass
       at org.jboss.forge.BarClass
       ...

The real exception is swallowed somehow, and I can only find it 
somewhere in the log. *If I am lucky.* Because logging is broken as well.

Every time I suggest to put fixing logging as priority, I am told "use 
JUL". But that's not a solution.
I can use JUL, or print to std err for that matter, but other parts and 
libraries will use SLF4J, Log4j, Commons Logging, JBoss logging.
These frameworks mostly do not perform well in modularized environment, 
and either

   1) Format logging in a really weird way (2 lines, date/time format 
like from Abraham Lincoln's diary)
   2) Log everything up to INFO level (see Forge's insanely long 
relatively irrelevant information)
   3) Even worse, log everything up to DEBUG level (see Forge's insanely 
long relatively irrelevant information)
   4) Even worse, do not log at all (see the long periods of silence in 
our test runs).

With these two combined, I can spend hours and hours, solving mysteries.
But that gets monotonous over time. I'd rather develop some 
functionality faster.

I have spent one evening trying various ways to fix logging, but without 
luck - since the frameworks are initiated at random places, I would have 
to add their deps and config to every addon used in the project, 
including non-Windup.

Could we please fix logging and exception handling?
See e.g. https://issues.jboss.org/browse/FORGE-1964, or whatever it takes.

Thanks,
Ondra