Re: [PATCH/RFC] Fix for default pager

From: Dario Rodriguez <soft.d4rio@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 8, 2010, 02:14 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTinydWk3GqGDww8FS7pmW16jAVazRkmT_GsRMIhy@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <1275955270-sup-2380@pinkfloyd.chass.utoronto.ca>

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Ben Walton <bwalton@artsci.utoronto.ca> wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

>
> 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?