Oh, ok, so plainpager is probably marginally better.
diff --git a/Lib/pydoc.py b/Lib/pydoc.py
index fe90a01..4c7471a 100755
--- a/Lib/pydoc.py
+++ b/Lib/pydoc.py
@@ -955,7 +955,7 @@
if not sys.stdin.isatty() or not sys.stdout.isatty():
return plainpager
if os.environ.get('TERM') in ['dumb', 'emacs']:
- return lambda text: sys.stdout.write(text)
+ return plainpager
if os.environ.has_key('PAGER'):
if sys.platform == 'win32': # pipes completely broken in Windows
return lambda text: tempfilepager(plain(text), os.environ['PAGER'])