Re: [IBMiOSS] gmake: *** virtual memory exhausted. Stop.

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 3:10 PM, Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The following is from Tony Cairns (IBM, PASE/and-more expert)....

Open Source projects require many tools beyond gcc compiler. Open Source
projects requires c coding knowledge. Open Source projects require domain
specific knowledge. All in all, simply impossible to describe on this wiki
page all aspects need to learn to develop successful Open Source projects.
In fact, most likely that only experienced c coders and/ or Open Source
developers will use the actual gcc environment.

I fully respect and acknowledge Tony's position here. It reeks of
knowledge and experience.

However, I would submit that a large part of why OSS is flourishing
now is that, given a proper, fully functioning Python, Ruby, or
Node.js environment (just to name a few), you can build quite
impressive and useful stuff *without* having to drop down to C or
other system-level programming. And even Java, which is often
ridiculed by Python/Ruby/Perl/etc. users as oppressively verbose and
overly bureaucratic, is still a ton easier to just get stuff working
in than pure C, and fully functioning JVMs are practically everywhere.

So, I get the thrust of what Tony is saying, but I also want to
reassure open source newbies that you don't HAVE to know C to
participate fruitfully in open source.

At risk of insulting knowledgeable developers, here is the truth most of us
learn about developing Open Source.

I'm not insulted, but maybe that just means I'm not knowledgeable enough. 8)

John Y.