← Graph

Why logs if traces are the best

question 2 connections

Audience asks why the talk is about logs when Callaghan declared traces the most powerful data type. Answer: pragmatism. Tracing is magical but hard to explain; people's eyes light up at 'structured logging' but glaze at 'tracing'. Traces capture hierarchical context (tree of nested events queryable at any level) while logs are flat series. Traces are generally more expensive and slower than logs, and introduce head/tail-sampling cost-control problems worse than logging-cost issues. Start with logs as the gateway drug; graduate to traces.

answer_summary
Traces are more powerful (hierarchical context) but harder to sell, more expensive, slower, and bring head/tail-sampling complications. Logs are the pragmatic gateway drug; graduate to traces once teams have momentum.
question Why logs if traces are the best
about
Question about tradeoffs between data types.
question Why logs if traces are the best
asked_at
Audience challenged Callaghan's framing that traces are superior yet the talk focused on logs.

Provenance

Read by
1 extraction