Re: [PATCH/RFC] Fix for default pager

[Dario Rodriguez <soft.d4rio@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Ben Walton <bwalton@artsci.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
> Why not set a sensible DEFAULT_PAGER value for the system in your
> config.mak file instead?
>
> Just curious.
>

I was thinking about it before coding the patch, and found some
consequences. First of all, the most important thing I should
understand is that most users will install git from binary,
precompiled packages instead of the good download and compile. So this
is actually a good reason to not do it that way (config.mak)... Some
users may download the compiled binary while it's actually calling
it's default pager.

But this is not the only reason. Let me give you an example: We
develop (I'm actually working at Accenture) using several machines.
When we need some tool, we compile it in our first machine, and
install it for an specific user. In some other environments we cannot
compile things (testing environments) so we transfer (FTP) those
binary files. It's just another case, and the default pager could
cause problems here (in fact, i experienced such problems).

Another case (or something as the first one): If you installed less
(via your package system), then git, and then you happen to uninstall
less... should GIT be uninstalled in absence of it's default pager?

I think GIT must auto-detect it's pager based in what is on the system
at runtime, don't you think so?