If you couldn't get execute permissions on anywehre else you didn't try hard enough. Anything not below "/home/user/MyDocs/" would work. MyDocs (and thus everything in it unless you've done further repartitioning) is FAT formatted - and FAT doesn't support the concept of executable permissions.

I keep my compiled code in /home/user/code/ for that same reason.

Anyway, either way you missed the other point - he didn't ask you why you put it in /usr/bin/, he asked you why you execute it with "./a.out" - if it's in /usr/bin, just "a.out" will suffice, because /usr/bin/ is part of path.

- Edit -
The reason some (most) people can't install GCC is because it's not in the normal repositories of extras, extras-testing, and extras-devel. It's in the sdk repositories. I.E: http://repository.maemo.org with the distribution "fremantle/sdk" (also add "fremantle/tools" with the same url as a seperate repository, because that's the other sdk repository).

Mentalist Traceur@ you are true , just see the result with a.out in /usr/bin instead of ./a.out.