What should Python apps do when asked to show help?

[Random832]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016, at 00:06, Ben Finney wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> writes:
> 
> > So they want the PAGER environment variable to specify what pager they
> > want...
> >
> > ...so long as applications don't actually make use of that PAGER
> > environment variable to determine the pager they want to use.
> 
> This at least does not baldly misrepresent the position being made :-)

I still don't understand how it's a misrepresentation. They said they
don't want stuff (where "stuff" includes pydoc but it's not clear why or
where it ends) to automatically use a pager without being requested, and
provided absolutely no criteria by which pydoc is special and shouldn't
behave the same as git and man do (since the entire reason PAGER=cat is
an unacceptable solution is that it "cripples" git and man).