PSoC5 is supported by GCC, the Cypress PSoC IDE just makes it easier for novices to get started. There is also a FreeRTOS port to PSoC5, so you can get into some pretty interesting stuff.
That aside, I am really glad they went with PSoC5 (ARM Cortex-M3 architecture) instead of the cheaper PSoC3 (8051 architecture). This makes it easy to prototype on the PSoC5 and then move to a more specialized Cortex when they hit performance limits.
Finally, I don't see mechanical drawings, however, I hope they spaced the parallel connectors on freeSOC n*0.1" apart. One of the frustrating things about Arduino is that the spacing on the shield connector is non-standard, so you can't simply plug it into a breadboard.
Just from the descriptions and photos, it looks like the mini will be breadboardable.
The bigger one almost certainly not -- it's arduino compatible and the gap on one side is visibly smaller than the other. Also, it's not clear if the big one will have pins dropping down below the board (just looks like female headers).
The IDE isn't just for novices, unless you really want to hand-configure every I/O pin and block on the device. That can take a hell of a lot of time to read through the documentation and figure out. It's not just a matter of "oh this pin is an input and this is an output" like Arduino/AVR.
That aside, I am really glad they went with PSoC5 (ARM Cortex-M3 architecture) instead of the cheaper PSoC3 (8051 architecture). This makes it easy to prototype on the PSoC5 and then move to a more specialized Cortex when they hit performance limits.
Finally, I don't see mechanical drawings, however, I hope they spaced the parallel connectors on freeSOC n*0.1" apart. One of the frustrating things about Arduino is that the spacing on the shield connector is non-standard, so you can't simply plug it into a breadboard.