You can write dissectors using Wireshark’s LUA API. That way you can write a quick-and dirty dissector without downloading Wireshark’s code, or even a compiler.
A very simple, yet powerful example is shown in the documentation.
Such a LUA dissector is perfectly fine for debugging use, and even distribution with your project.
If you intend to commit your dissector to the official Wireshark repository, you should of course implement it in C for performance and integration reasons.
To use your dissector, create a file my_dissector.lua and invoke Wireshark like this: wireshark -X lua_script:my_dissector.lua