I'm making my first foray into the J2ME world. I'd prefer to use a functional language to do the development.
Scala used to have CLDC support, but it's no longer maintained. Bigloo seems to have disappeared.
Interpreters (such as Jython) are a no-go, since J2ME apps have to be small (at least, mine has to be).
I would like to know of anyone who has been able to use another JVM language to build J2ME apps.
Running a different language on top of CLDC might be cool but the devices are usually very constrained in memory and CPU that this is merely impossible.
Look forward to JavaFX which will bring new wind to mobile marketplace. For existing handsets you have to use Java ME.
Java is one of the most widely available runtimes. So if your app is aimed at a wide range of Handsets you should indeed choose Java ME. If you are targeting a particular make/model you could have other choices. For example, The Symbian OS, can take a number of runtimes and you could develop using open C/C++ amongst others. Check the link. Probably I am late in answering this one and your project is already under way.