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

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 6:33 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"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.”

I on the other agree fully with Tony _except_ I would replace “C” with “Unixese” - I do know some C but have rarely found it necessary to utilizing OS software. However the fact that everything is described in assorted sub-dialects of Unixese _is_ a major inhibitor.

It definitely helps to have some Unix background. But the necessity of
that is eroding as well, for similar reasons that it is for C. People
keep coming up with tools that make the underlying operating system
less and less relevant, at least for a large class of tasks/problems,
for the simple reason that making things more accessible is a net win.
For everyone, not just C gurus or Unix gurus.

I try to follow some of the conversations on this list and frankly it is putting me off trying a lot of the stuff. Take an extract from one of the recent discussions on this list:

That's mainly an issue of familiarity, though. Listening to IBM i
people talk shop is just as arcane-sounding to outsiders, I can assure
you.

I will say that the most arcane-sounding Unix stuff has to do more
with configuration and building low-level tools and less to do with
application-level programming; and this is EXACTLY the same situation
in the IBM i world.

I have always known, and continue to be reminded of every day, that I
am a programmer and not a system administrator. There are some people
who can manage to be both, but you absolutely do not have to do both
to make a meaningful contribution.

John Y.