RE: hard links vs. sym links

[Greg Spencer]

> What I *really* would like is for the compiler error messages and gdb
> messages to refer to the source file!  Unfortunately this conflicts
with
> some of cons' design goals.

I just wanted to point out that this is exactly the reason I changed my
NT extensions so that the compiler builds using the "source" of the
linked files, and outputs to the linked directory.  This was as simple
as adding a ":S" flag to the substitution code.  That way all the error
messages refer to the right file.  I know it's a little crazy (since the
linked files are pretty much ignored), but they're just hard links
anyhow (even on NT, as long as you have an NTFS partition).  On NT this
is particularly useful since although I use Emacs, most folks want to
use MSDEV, which has NO concept of links at all, and it blows away the
link when it saves, which causes the files to be re-linked on the next
pass, blowing away all your changes, which is FAR less than ideal :-).

My personal feeling is that if something useful goes against a design
goal, then the design goal should be re-evaluated, along with the
"something useful" to see if they can be brought to parity.

                                -Greg.