Jameson Graef Rollins <jrollins@finestructure.net> writes:

>  Is there some benefit to having a command line option for this that I
> don't see?

In my experience the environment variable is somewhat dangerous to use
while testing. If left set to the wrong value, it can lead the loss of
tag information.

>  I see this as another instance of an option that regular users will
> rarely use, if ever.

I don't see this as really comparable with a debugging option:
temporarily changing the configuration is something that can be useful
outside of debugging and testing. Although I'm fuzzy on the details now,
I remember telling someone to do this, I think to temporarily modify
what was ignored.

> In general, I am a strong advocate of keeping the CLI slim.  IMHO,
> adding more options makes the interface clunkier, and the manual harder
> to parse, and I'm against adding things that a normal user would likely
> never use. 

Well, it's are reasonable heuristic, although I might disagree in
general where the cutoff for "normal use" is, as I do in this case.

> In retrospect, I should have had the same objection to the
> --format-version option, which I think could have just been an env var
> as well.

I don't follow this part of your argument. I don't think replacing
command line arguments by environment variables makes the interface or
documentation simpler; at least if we document the environment variables
properly.  Note that non-shell based invokation (which is often
desirable from e.g. scripting languages or Emacs) is typically, more
complicated using environment variables. It's also more complicated for
the user if they do have to use these options in a shell or a script.

d