DOC: Suggested build_ext command may fail on low-resource machines

[cai-lw]

Pandas version checks

• I have checked that the issue still exists on the latest versions of the docs on main here

Location of the documentation

https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/contributing_environment.html#step-3-build-and-install-pandas

Documentation problem

On low resource machines python setup.py build_ext -j 4 may fail due to concurrent compiling jobs exhausting memory.

I had this problem when developing in GitHub Codespace, in which the smallest (and default) machine has only 2 CPU cores and 4GB of memory.

Suggested fix for documentation

Three options:

1. Add a comment # The number after -j is the number of compiling jobs run in parallel. Change it according to your machine's hardware spec.
2. Change the command to python setup.py build_ext -j 2.
3. Setting a minimum specification for codespace machines

[phofl]

Thanks for your report. I'd prefer option 1