bbjh1,
If you do not have all the tools you need for developing/debugging U-boot (including a full compiler set and also a Hardware JTAG Pod/debugger set so you can burn Flash images directly without using TFTP). Then you should leave U-boot alone as you can make the board useless if you screw up. Trust me, I've done that and was really glad that I had the Codewarrior USB tap to reburn my board to bring it back to life.
If you goal is to write simple programs rather then bringing up full blown linux, then the better method is to leave U-boot alone and instead, write code to locate to an area of flash not used by U-boot or Linux (assuming you are running Linux), burn that area of flash using U-boot TFTP to transfer the binary image and U-boot to burn it to flash and then use U-boot to jump to that location and start executing. That is a method I've used in the past and it works quite well.
Having said that, if you are really serious about doing low level programming and not just Linux applications, you really do need to invest in a USB TAP or other Hardware debugger to get your job done.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Alan