Common Pitfalls designing a custom board?

[mariusTe]

I think if carefully considered, it is a software (simplified commands, functions similar to BASIC) and hardware is not abstracted but simplified into basic functions. Even the pinout nomenclature has taken on simple naming conventions such as D0, D1, D2 ... and A0, A1, A2, A3, etc.

Yes, this is a much better way of describing it. Funnily enough I started my microprocessor journey with BASIC, BASCOM to be exact. This might have colored my preferences for simplicity in software.

I think there will be a project where the STM32 standard tool-chain is the best or only option for me - it might even be this project. I tried this in the past but it feels like a lot more work or complexity than I desire. But there are always trade offs like you say. We will see which path I'll end up on.

The IDE is pretty basic; some people like it, others make do, others us an external editor like Notepad++.

So far I have always programmed in a text editor (Sublime Text) and hit "compile" once in a while in the IDE. Using a proper IDE like Ecipse or AVR Studio or CC Studio in the past always felt somewhat daunting and sluggish - but I fully understand that the capabilities are not even comparable. When I switch I might even try out some fancy SWD debugging

[jasperarrow]

I am currently designing a small test board to develop software for an upcoming larger PCB design I want to make.
In my work I usually use CubeMX to select all the Periphery I want and the software engineers implement these modes in firmware.
For this non-work project I have to do every thing myself of course.

My question then are there any pitfalls I should look out for when designing my first Arduino on STM32 board or can I just go ahead an load up all the GPIOs as I would when designing a non-Arduino STM32 board? Are there things which would require a large amount of tinkering within the libraries to get going.