Setting the dev option

[Florian Weimer]

javac has this code:

        } catch (Throwable ex) {
            // Nasty.  If we've already reported an error, compensate
            // for buggy compiler error recovery by swallowing thrown
            // exceptions.
            if (comp == null || comp.errorCount() == 0 || options.isSet("dev"))
                bugMessage(ex);
            printArgsToFile = true;
            return Result.ABNORMAL;

Is there some way to set the "dev" option without patching the
sources, so that I can see the exception even if it follows an earlier
error?