No, is not uncommon, usually is a method used by "consultant types" or developers that want job security. It make sure that nobody could get support for your own version of spaghetti and wheel reinvention from anywhere and also on-boarding another developer is not cost effective, so they will turn back to you. Usually coupled with useless documentation and architecture. Because the companies that developed this chips surely have no idea how theri stuff works and need some rando to do it from scratch in an "optimized" mode.
At lest in my current workplace, whoever comes with this crap gets a swift kick in the behind.
Yeah, have seen this a few times, and when "your company" is unable to finish the product and your customers start to ask difficult questions, somehow I get involved* to fix it. Then your incompetent developers have to come to the Internet to spew some bullshit like this to get their frustration off their chests. But don't worry, we both got paid, and the customer finally got something delivered.
*) through some very weird routes I can't disclose because the end customers are usually very large and have weird non-disclosure requirements.
See? People like this still exist! Imagine comments like above by DC1MC were the default commonplace reply just a few years ago. What a blast from the past.
Ummm hmmm, when the "incompetent developers" have reached the end of their rope and the customers are starting to ask really hard questions, who you gonna call call, call Siwastaja, he will solve all with all the pending issues with one hand tied behind using his proprietary "pfuscherei.lib" optimized uncommented assembly, what CMSIS, what HAL, these are just bloat, raw metal baby, with my own register names, this how real consultants are doing it, it solves everything, just look at my freelancer.com (formerly known as rent-a-coder.com) reviews, are totally stellar
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Then all the "incompetent developers" are fired, the support contracts with the chip manufacturer are cancelled, the whole software development is kicked out and the company has but one super-star, or rock-star, consultant Siwastaja, that will solve anything with a bit of highly optimized code that no one was capable of thinking about. Of course, this code is unmaintainable, tied to a very specific chip type and even mask version, and of course the toolchain must not be updated ever, because the whole optimized mess will not compile anymore. But other large companies (undisclosed, under NDA, no details can be revealed) are using libpfuscherei, so is really a way better solution than what the manufacturer and standard bodies promotes, they have no clue, all incompetents
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Well, joking (and personal attacks) aside, I don't know why you feel so personally attacked Siwastaja, different companies have different development strategies, I'm pretty sure that your skills are appreciated in some circles, no need to resort to calling names and stuff if some other don't like the "extreme customization", to call it gently, promoted by some consultants.
Cheers,
DC1MC