[yekim]

Depends on how deep down the embedded rabbit hole you want to go.

Personally, an article like this, with its main diagram and high level descriptions, would have been enormously useful back when I was just starting to learn the dark arts of computer programming.

If your Point of Sale systems are running some embedded form of Linux, and all HW access is abstracted away from you, then you're probably right.

On the other hand, if you are writing code that deals with external HW signals, performant memory access, ISRs, an RTOS and their many features, etc, then this article serves as a good basic foundation for the "software" side of things. Ie what actually happens when you hit the "build" button in your IDE.

From, a long time embedded software engineer

[asteli]

Also depends on which rabbit hole you choose.

I'm an electrical design guy, dilettante wrt embedded software. 8-bit AVR controllers were a breeze to work with at a bare-metal level.

Now that I'm attempting to acquaint myself with the STM32 environment and the requisite libraries, I'm finding the toolchain and environment a lot more challenging than what I remember from working with AVR.

[yekim]

True, to an extent.

I'm assuming you are referring to the Arduino family when you say "8-bit AVR controllers"? If yes, they do in fact do a great job at making things somewhat easy for the dabbler, and have many resources available online to peruse for help.

Taking the next step to full-on embedded development (STM32 in this case), as you are finding out, is quite a big leap. Not that it can't be done, but that it really is challenging.

Guess it depends on your background and your familiarity with software development and/or hardware in general.