Stale packages are a distro problem, not a platform one. You said so yourself, you can compile it and it works. Your problem isn’t with ARM. Arch on arm works fine.
While not ARMs fault, the pain is still very real for the end user.
Compiling once is maybe ok, if you get lucky. But more often than not you end up needing to compile several things, and then again every time there is an update you want.
Trying to automatic that is also a pain.
It's just so much extra work, that I'd rather spend working on my project, and not compiling.
I love that we in Linux world have compiling as an option for most apps, but there is a time and place for it.
Build chain problem, not an ARM one. That said, this is THE WORST problem. Having to recompile all dependencies to a platform target just so your own Makefile will build.
I feel like distros have an obligation to cross compile all packages for x86 and arm in their own build chains. That’s ultimately where this problem lies. You can’t apt install the dependencies you need to make install your thing.
It's just so much extra work, that I'd rather spend working on my project, and not compiling.
I love that we in Linux world have compiling as an option for most apps, but there is a time and place for it.