Extending embedded boards

Hi,
I want to dive into embedded programming. I have been developing software for 10 years. Looking at some arm boards, some come with a wifi, some with an IR receiver, ...
I can't make my choice (raspberry pi, pandaboard, ...).

Is it possible to extend ANY board to do ANYTHING ?

I see on the internet that sometimes you can buy a "cap" that provides wifi, sometimes it is by usb, ... It is not clear what you can do and what you can't do with what boards, what are the limitations, ... So I want to make sure that I buy something that won't block me from doing what I want because "if you wanted to plug this you had to buy this board". E.g some boards have a video input. If I buy one that doesn't and some day I realize I need one is it always possible to buy one and connect it (via usb or whatever) to the board ?

Ideally I could run linux/android on the board, have wifi, a camera, a breadboard and an IR receiver (and other things I can't think of right now for future projects) I don't care if I buy a board and pieces one by one or if they come all together built in.

I hope I was clear, Im not an English native

Thanks in advance for any advice
Thomas

No

I would worry about what you're trying to do today rather than trying to worry about everything you might do in the future. Development boards like this are really not very expensive.

Thank you for your answer, I will buy the board I need first and see. I think I will go for the pandaboard : wifi, bluetooth, camera ok via usb and it seems that some people made it talk with an arduino via the serial port which is all I need

I kind of had the sense that by plugging in some usb peripheral device it was possible to do everything but I guess I will have to learn over time and get my hands dirty first !

Thomas

Bear in mind that if you're developing new things, plugging in new hardware, or even making your own, that you may end up killing your dev board at some point (either through mechanical failure of some plug / connector / switch, or some errant s/w which manages to trash something critical.

Something cheap which handles a reasonable subset of your immediate interests would suffice.

New dev boards with more and more capabilities appear all the time (and ever decreasing prices at any given feature set).