My team has been using log4j in WebSphere for nearly 18 months so it sometimes comes as a surprise to me when I see people having difficulty with the concept. I was pleasantly surprised to find 7 1/2 pages on using log4j in the latest IBM Redbook "WebSphere Version 4 Application Development Handbook". Here is a link to the PDF:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/pubs/pdfs/redbooks/sg246134.pdf
The reference is in chapter 13, "Guidelines for coding WebSphere applications". Both JRas and log4j are discussed along with general guidance on why a logging framework is necessary, what one should expect from such a framework, and demonstration of writing a wrapper to hide the framework implementation. The author(s) have quite a few good things to say about log4j.
Best regards,
Jim Cakalic
