For developers who mainly do application level work on top of an existing software stack, the following list shows practices that work best. For information on using a Software Development Kit (SDK), see the Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide:
Use a pre-built toolchain that contains the software stack itself. Then, develop the application code on top of the stack. This method works well for small numbers of relatively isolated applications.
When possible, use the Yocto Project plug-in for the Eclipse™ IDE and SDK development practices. For more information, see the "Yocto Project Software Development Kit (SDK) Developer's Guide".
Keep your cross-development toolchains
updated.
You can do this through provisioning either as new
toolchain downloads or as updates through a package
update mechanism using opkg
to provide updates to an existing toolchain.
The exact mechanics of how and when to do this are a
question for local policy.
Use multiple toolchains installed locally into different locations to allow development across versions.