logging in emacs

I was wondering what the right way would be to write log messages in Emacs, considering also that I wanted to avoid composing messages if logging were turned off.

These are log functions I found in my Emacs:

tramp-message
tramp-debug-message
gnus-message
gmm-message
yas--message

WoMan-log
WoMan-log-1
comp-log
dired-log
server-log
elfeed-log
flymake-log

url-debug
sh-debug
envrc--debug
jsonrpc--debug
websocket-debug
transient--debug
with-editor-debug

:-(

These functions differ in:

- whether they write to the *Messages* buffer or to their own buffer
- whether and how they define log levels
- whether and what additional information they include
- ?

Fun fact: AI suggested to me that it would be idiomatic to Emacs to use a macro as a log function. However none (except sh-debug) of the above is a macro.