Remote debugging works pretty well on Windows, and I imagine it's the same story on anything Unix-like. You can work on your decent PC, debugging your program a

Remote debugging works pretty well on Windows, and I imagine it's the same story on anything Unix-like. You can work on your decent PC, debugging your program as it runs on some rubbish old castoff PC that was destined for landfill. If the budget isn't even enough for the necessary peripherals, you can get away with just a kettle lead and a network cable and then use Remote Desktop to interact with it. The remote debugging setup process isn't very slick, but it doesn't take long to figure out, and with a bit of folder-sharing you can keep all the files on your work PC so that it's all nice and convenient. I did this for quite a while, working on Windows, and it worked well. I don't recall any significant problems with it. If cost is what's preventing you getting a nice PC, then that's one thing, but the issue is just ensuring that slow code doesn't go unnoticed, this approach will probably keep you/your programmers happier...