pardon my ignorance, but despite their website, specs, and a list of their projects, I haven't been able to figure out whether this would easily connect to my laptop via USB, and I could deploy some code on it for starters. Do I need any additional pluggable hardware?
If it's anything like the BeagleBone Black Debian-based image, you can connect with USB to get access to a shell, or access the Cloud9 IDE through your browser. It's very plug-and-play friendly. (The BeagleBone variants also have ethernet/WiFi, which can be used for the same, but I can't tell if the PocketBeagle does wireless or not.)