Thread:Talk:Requests for comment/Structured logging/Google Protocol Buffers/reply

I think protocol buffers are solving a slightly different problem. They allow for specification of a rigid message structure with efficient binary representation such as would typically be used for some sort of interprocess (and possibly inter-language) message passing. For event logging I think that having a rigid message structure is unwanted. Not all events will look alike and thus not all events will contain the exact same fields. We are looking to specify a "core" set of fields but would like the ability to invent additional ones as appropriate. I think there are also advantages to using plain text rather than binary formats. Plain text is more easily debugged and manipulated with a variety of tools which supports the primary use case of recording events so that developers and operational support teams can debug runtime issues.