Quick and Dirty Logging

Ever felt the need to quickly implement logging in your application but you don't want to loose time learning/remembering how to use a true logging framework or creating your own utility logging class?
There are some developers who tend to bring their own utility classes in their backpack just in case they stumble upon one of these situations. Most of us however, don't keep track of the utility classes we've written throughout the years or tend to loose that code. So last time it happened to me, I've written this "Quick and Dirty Logging" class using a TraceListener.



Usage examples:



Implementation Details 
Note that I've decided to break the debugger whenever I stumble with an error or warning as long as the assembly is compiled in debug mode. I made this decision because at the time I wanted to be able to fix the errors using the "Edit and Continue" visual studio feature thus shortening the debug-stop-rebuild-restart cycle and saving some time. This code is not supposed to be a production code, but that won't be a problem as long as you make sure you don't deploy debug assemblies anywhere other than a developer machine.

Also as we're using the System.Diagnostics.Trace features, make sure you have tracing enabled in your project (the TRACE compilation symbol needs to be defined), which is the default for visual studio C# projects.

Remember that there are logging frameworks far more customizable and faster than this small logging class. This isn't supposed to replace any other logging mechanism, it's just a quick solution empowered by its simplicity.

Conclusion
Next time I feel the urge to create a quick logging mechanism I'll try to remember this post and gather this code. But then again, when that happens, I'm pretty much sure Murphy's Law will make sure I won't get internet access. Probably the proxy will die on me while I'm opening the browser!