Datasheets have always been, and hopefully always will stay compact descriptions of functions and tables with functions.
Just as longer explanations of particular subjects and examples have always been distributed as "application notes"
It's one of the reasons I do not like the datasheets of the AVR's. They have grown from compact very readable datatheets (200 pages or so) to long winding and very boring to read explanations of how they think you should be using features.
A good example for this is the MPCM (Multi Processor Communications Mode) in the datasheet of the M328. It is a 2 page read and you do not get much wiser from it, as I wanted to use it in a slightly different way then they wrote it down, and it was not clear from the description if that was possible.
Then, for the "Blue Pill" (Not recommended anymore unfortunately) it was easy to find the corresponding section for the USART in the RTFM00000008 reference manual.
Another thing I came to dislike very much about the AVR's is that you get completely lost in the subtle changes between the timers. In a single chip they have 8 bit times that are not alike. 1 or more 16-bit timers and if there are 2 then they probably are different.
Then I loved the datasheets of the STM32.
They describe the functionality of a timer briefly and compact. Explain what the bits in the registers do, and there is also a note like "Oh, there are 5 of these timers in this chip".
And still the RTFM000000000000000008 is over 1100 pages long, because there are so god damn many features in those chips, and I love them all.
But the datasheets and reference manuals are no "getting started guide".
That is a seperate (30 page or so) pdf also made by stm, as "newbrain" posted earlier.
Then of course there are also books.
Many books have been written on every significant micro controller family.
For the STM32 I particularly like:
STM32_Beginning_Developing_with_FreeRTOS_libopencm3_and_GCC
By: Warren Gay, call sign: VE3WWG
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-3623-9
ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-3624-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3624-6Library of Congress Control Number: 2018945101
This book handles everything you need to get started with STM32 and libopencm3 on a low budget.
"LibOpenCM3" is is a limited libary, and seems not much kept up to date for all the different STM32 variants, but still I like it because it is neatly written and simple framework which is very close to direct register manipulation.
When you go StmCube (or older HAL) you get plenty of graphical flashy things, and also 3 layers of function calls and when you dive into it then the last is a "/* You can enter your own code here. */" Yuch!.
Last remark:
if you want to find the RTFM0000000000000008 on the 'net: It's without the "T" and "F" and only has 3 zero's. "DocID13902" may also help.
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