Tinylog 2 integration

[ppkarwasz]

In order to promote Log4j API as a valid alternative to the hegemonic SLF4J, we should consider integrating with Tinylog 2, which has some amazing benchmarks.

We have many types of users:

• small companies (or developers of small applications on premises) usually don't need all the shiny features provided by Log4j Core, for them Tinylog 2 is enough. My former client was exactly looking for something like that: a logging backend with just console and file appenders (for minimal security exposure). I sold him JUL bound to the Log4j API as a replacement for Log4j 1.x (people are sometimes scared of Log4j Core, I couldn't convince them to use it).
• developers like to use Log4j 2.x, since you have unlimited possibilities to filter your logs instead of using a debugger.
• big companies probably prefer Log4j Core.

What do you think? Should we write a "Tinylog API to Log4j API" and `Log4j API to Tinylog API" bridges?

[ppkarwasz]

Regarding the benchmarks: @pmwmedia, could you rerun them using our Log4j Transform Maven plugin? This should reduce the distance between Tinylog 2 and Log4j Core, when full location data is required.

Next year I will be extending our plugin to include support for other APIs except Log4j API, it should be fairly easy to add Tinylog 2 API to them (as long as there is a way to pass a StackTraceElement to the API, e.g. as last argument).

Remark: I think that Tinylog 2 fell into the same marketing trap as Log4j 2.x: since both the API and implementation are called "Tinylog", nobody takes the API seriously. The SLF4J/Logback marketing strategy is much better.