Could I use SSH over iTerm, and display multiple windows in Screen? Sure. But this is easier/quicker.
It would be nice if it didn't need to constantly hit local disk on every machine, though.
But why would you ever inflict raw, unprocessed, scrolling logs on anyone other than developers working on a specific bug? (they'd expect an accessible backwards search too)
That said, I agree- Historical Search is a necessary feature for it to be very useful to debugging.
This tool is most useful for watching servers after deployments, tracking a process through a bunch of coordinated services, live debugging, or keeping an eye on specific log messages across a bunch of servers.
As many folks have pointed out, there are plenty of solutions for aggregating, storing, parsing and analyzing logs. We needed a tool to make watching live logs simpler. That's what this is for.
http://demo.vamonossoftware.com
So, I can easily see the use for these kinds of tools. Nagios, Splunk, et al are all too heavyweight for our kind of requirements.
OP's ignorance makes him a threat to himself and others. It's this absolute refusal to learn the existing toolset that's pervading modern software development, putting projects in jeopardy. What's odd to me is that not only is the HN community complacent in this, you actually applaud it.
FWIW, this is why your sysadmin is pithy. He has seen software developers pull stunts like this for far too long, unwilling to listen to reason, unwilling to be technically cuckolded by a software package that's existed for thirty years.
Ignorance doesn't listen to reason.