I would recommend "Computers as Components: Principles of Emebedded
Computing System Design" by Wanye Wolf, ISBN 1-55860-541-X.  It is a
good overall introduction, but don't expect to become an expert on any
one platform from reading this book.

That being said, the author does concentrate on the ARM and SHARC
platforms for examples.

Hello,

Is there a book or website I can reference to gain a layman's view of
embedded software development.

I keep hearing all these words: board support package, hardware
bring-up, on-chip debugging, JTAG, emulator.....
I used this book to understand Electronic Design Automation and it was
fabulous:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131828290/qid=1113538214/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8156671-8711239?v=glance&s=books
Essential Electronic Design Automation: Mark Birnbaum.

I was wondering if there might be such a website/book for
embedded/device software development?

S H