[sdiy] Freescale announces a new ARM Product based upon Cortex A5 and Cortex M4

[Bruce Duncan]

You may be right that learning Linux is time well spent.
I have tried the Windows versions of Keil and Attolic software and I 
agree they are horrible to use
especially considering what they cost.
It's too bad there is not an equivalent to Microchips MPLAB and C32 
compiler in the ARM world.
A windows based environment that is both simple to use, inexpensive to 
buy and includes optimized libraries as standard.
ARM data sheets are very hard going and there are very few examples in 
code to draw from.
The ARM forums are mostly unusable.
It feels like the the whole ARM ecosystem is setup to be as difficult as 
possible to penetrate.
Having so many vendors of the ARM technology has created a system were 
there is no incentive
to support the devices by the chip makers beyond the very basics. They 
rely on the software companies to do it
and again with so many software makers it is difficult for them to 
justify the cost of adequate support.
This is why Microchip can do it so well. They have a monopoly on the 
Mips technology in their sector.
If they could make a PIC32 with all the peripherals that ARM are now 
starting to offer they would easily eclipse ARM
in areas of development and support.