Unexpected behavior with max_level_* in dependencies.

[olivia-fl]

I ran into an issue where one of my transitive dependencies set release_max_level_error. This meant that when I tried to specify release_max_level_info, it didn't actually do anything in either my crate or the dependency. This is both rather confusing to debug, and means that there's currently no way I can get my crate to output info! calls on release builds.

In my case, it would be better to revert the ordering of which max_level_* features override others, os that max_level_info would take priority over max_level_error, but I could also easily imagine a situation where this would be reversed.

Because of this, I'm not sure if there's a reasonable solution.

[KodrAus]

@Benjamin-L Hmm this is a problem. Libraries shouldn't be using the max_level features, and leave it to the end binary to specify for this reason.

I think we should call that out in the docs more. For this specific issue I think we should try get that transitive dependency to avoid using those features.

[olivia-fl]

I feel like it does sometimes make sense to have a dependency default to a particular max_level, since logging could be a really obscure performance issue that users of the library might not think of. Ideally, there would be a way to have different max levels between dependencies, although I can't think of a way to do that with cargo's features.

[KodrAus]

Yeh, the global nature of these features is a bit of a footgun. For the system we've got now I think we should strongly recommend libraries against using the max-level features. If they're logging in paths that are hot enough for an atomic load and check to make a noticeable impact then they could provide their own wrappers for the log macros that are compiled out in release mode.

[KodrAus]

It looks like the dependency in question will rework their use of the max_level features, and some docs have been added recommending against using these features in libraries.

I'll go ahead and close this one now, but please feel free to re-open it if anything new comes up!