Cross-platform development

I've read a great article about multi-platorm development today. I've already been involved in the development of multi-platform solutions and I saw big sacrifices made for the sake of common codebase. Not all code could be shared this way, of course, there was thicker/thinner layer(s) on the top of common code. Generally the maintenance/improvement of common code was slower compared to one-platform-only cases and the code was less efficient, too. I was not convinced that it was worth doing it this way at all.

Having said this, I fully agree with the analysis above. I would add, though, that multi-platform development requires either highly-skilled developers with solid knowledge of each platform they're developing for or a team of developers writing code 1 man/platform with very good communication within the team. Either choice could be right or wrong depending on many factors, like complexity of solution, developer skills, proper specification, etc.

Btw, Simon Judge has also added his valuable remarks to this topic.

Cheers,

Tote