[HeyLaughingBoy]

> The flow is: I'm trying to do a thing that's only marginally related to the embedded device

It's too bad that this comment is buried so deep: it should be at top level. More and more often, embedded work is just like this -- the business logic is far more important than the fact that it's running on an "embedded device." And in those cases, having programmers who understand modern software development at a high level is far more useful than having programmers who are expert in C and comfortable sitting down with multiple chip datasheets for a week, writing peripheral drivers.