Configure verbose logging to off by default

[ada-magicat]

The current default user configuration for bst is:

logging:
  verbose: true

I don't think this makes sense for most users even if it can make sense for Ci systems. Having to instruct every user to turn this off is a bigger hassle than configuring one CI system per project to turn this config on, in my opinion.

[juergbi]

Even if we all were to agree that non-verbose might be a better default (maybe keep verbose as default for non-interactive mode), I'm not sure whether changing the default within 2.x would be a good idea.

Having to instruct every user to turn this off

I can certainly see the verbose output being overwhelming for some users. However, it's not like BuildStream won't function with the verbose output for those users.

If the default verbose output is really confusing to a majority of users of particular projects, I'm wondering whether it might be reasonable to allow projects to define defaults for the user config. I.e., if the user doesn't explicitly set verbose in the config file and also doesn't pass --verbose or --no-verbose, use the project-defined default. A project default for message-format could also be interesting. I'm not sure whether it's a good idea, though, especially as it might not straight forward given logging may start before project.conf is read and subproject defaults would presumably have to be ignored.

A simpler possibility could be to print a message very early indicating that verbose logging is enabled and how to disable it for more concise output.

[ada-magicat]

I can certainly see the verbose output being overwhelming for some users. However, it's not like BuildStream won't function with the verbose output for those users.

This is obviously not about the tool functioning or not functioning, it is about the developer experience presented.

A project default for message-format could also be interesting.

In my opinion, message-format is over-configuration, even in its current state. I basically know of no build tool that lets you do this, they all pick a good output format for what their use case is and if there are issues they improve on that. I really think buildstream should follow a similar approach of building a good default UX.

There are also limitations of what message-format can even provide, of course. You actually can not use this feature to tell buildstream to not print certain kinds of messages, so I think it is not very relevant to this issue.

[ada-magicat]

confusing to a majority of users
overwhelming for some users

It is also about the usefulness of the output. I am sure it can sometimes be useful to some people, perhaps developers of buildstream, but I really do not think it is useful to anyone using buildstream to build something. The most common and important errors in those cases are build failures which get dug into massive amounts of debug output of the tool itself.

A simpler possibility could be to print a message very early indicating that verbose logging is enabled and how to disable it for more concise output.

That sounds like even more logging? If you go to the trouble of telling users how to fix something, why not just fix it automatically for every user instead?

I'm not sure whether changing the default within 2.x would be a good idea.

While I can understand not wanting to make breaking changes, I really do not think this would measurably break anything other than some CI configs needing to be tweaked. I am okay with it happening for 3.x as well though.