This is very common in embedded systems, and honestly I'm not surprised to see this, even with projects like Raspberry Pi... although, I do think it's a big shortcoming for a project like that.
In a "real project" you would be relying on your suppliers and other teams / colleagues for many of the "hard questions". Chances are you'd have a contact with the silica manufacturer, just as a major example.
There would be a boot team, or sometimes just one boot developer. If anything goes wrong, or you want to change anything, you would be pretty helpless without them. You can go to the various specs and code, but this can be quite in depth if you're starting from scratch.
Change project or micro? Chances are that all goes out the window, and you have to start from scratch.
In a "real project" you would be relying on your suppliers and other teams / colleagues for many of the "hard questions". Chances are you'd have a contact with the silica manufacturer, just as a major example.
There would be a boot team, or sometimes just one boot developer. If anything goes wrong, or you want to change anything, you would be pretty helpless without them. You can go to the various specs and code, but this can be quite in depth if you're starting from scratch.
Change project or micro? Chances are that all goes out the window, and you have to start from scratch.