[Axiom-developer] /dev/null, noweb and Axiom

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

Hi,

noweb uses /dev/null as a special place where to copy Emacs mode
support file, if the user does not want to have that file installed.

Axiom believes that writing to /dev/null is immoral and should not be
allowed.  Consequently it patches noweb's src/Makefile so that it uses
$(TMP)/null.  And at the same time, Axiom uses $(TMP)/null where to
send error messages in case a command fails -- for post-morterm
analysis.  The result of this mic-mac is that after noweb is built and
"installed", the file $(TMP)/null contains noweb's elisp file intead
of log messages.  :-/

I like the idea of having a log somehwere. 
I disagree with the idea that writing to /dev/null should be banned.

(Arguably, noweb's uses of /dev/null is "interesting", but that is a
different debate.)

-- Gaby