There is an Arduino port to STM32 (Blue Pill in particular), for those whose idea of embedded programming involves a bunch of delay() statements scattered around the library code, making sure no other peripherals can be used while you’re polling for the next UART char..
There's a million and one peripherals designed for that specific combination that don't work seamlessly with other boards (even within the "official" Arduino family)
I mean your complaint about the quality of the library code, it's perfectly fine that the code sucks if it lets people do 1 million and one things they couldn't otherwise.
Do you really think someone programming an Arduino for controlling their cosplay LEDs cares if the library they used is poorly written? As long as it works it works.
They were never going to read the datasheet for an MCU and start figuring out bit masks for pin initialization, so it's literally a case of something is better than nothing, and there's no reason to gatekeep the environment that lets them use embedded systems
Seriously, it's easy to crap on this stuff when you're willing to recommend boards that cost "just 20 dollars more", or have one-hundrenth the community because most of the end users are embedded engineers or the anything-but-a-pi sub crowd.
To me it just shows a lack of ability to consider requirements in evaluation. Even something as simple as the fact the rPI form factor has been fairly consistent for a while is a huge boon to people just trying to start with this stuff.
I could give my mom a rPI and a $20 starter kit and she could probably get to the point of a working PC.
I wouldn't dream of that with anything else. The fact it's Broadcom based is a little unfortunate but that ship has sailed and the ecosystem around it now trounces any benefit of alternatives for the actual people using them. Not embedded engineers who say it's crap because they wouldn't make a custom product based on that SoC.
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This is like when people point out that for half the price of an Arduino Uno you can get an STM32 board that will run circles around a dinky ATmega328.
It's not about the power or "objective goodness", even the header layout of the Uno lets beginners use an insane wealth of peripherals designed for it