Oh, no, once again let me state for the record, I fully admit that when moving to a new CPU, a Java app does not need to be recompiled, and a C++ app does need to be recompiled. I believe this is what you are worried about, right? In this, you are entirely correct.

What I am saying, is that cross-compiling a program is, in today's world, quite trivial. FAR easier than adapting that program to, say, changes in display size or GPU ability.

Heck, you can see this for yourself, simply download and try out the QT SDK from Nokia's site. Years ago, I remember beating my head against the desk trying to figure out how to configure GCC to cross-compile even a trivial program, where to get the correct libraries, how to even get the compiled binary onto the target machine and try running it. Today, they've got this fabulous "scratchbox" environment, and you can create binaries for all your various targets at the push of a button. Try out one of their example programs, like the cute little "drag and drop robot", and it runs just the same on an ancient AMD Atlhlon x2 CPU as on the n900. (The QT SDK can also create binaries for Symbian, but as I don't have a Symbian device, I haven't been able to try it out yet.)

It's true that I haven't done any serious development work in years, though.


Honestly, do it -- download the QT SDK for yourself, and write a hello world app. Heck, just choose one of their apps. See for yourself just how incredibly hard it is to press a button and have binaries automatically generated for vastly different CPU architectures.