I mean, you can use bash scripts, make/cmake/compilers, and basic command line tools, and the basics are included. Technically you can install just about anything in the Ubuntu repositories, although even simple command-line applications (pianobar, etc) couldn't get audio access; I'm guessing that anything that needs a display or X server is right out of the question. Given that it can't launch or build Windows executables, it's limited in scope, and you can't even properly test any sort of graphical applications you build anyways.
Short version is it depends on what you need to do, but in most cases I'd still recommend just doing it in Linux.