I normally write c programs on my windows machine using Netbeans and use the remote build feature to run it on my Rasberry Pi elsewhere.
Now I have the Pi connected directly to my computer via Ethernet cable. There is no Internet connection, ifconfig shows no IP address on my PI
Can I remote build over Ethernet to the PI using just the MAC address, or somehow give my PI an IP address that Netbeans can build to?
You can access your raspberry pi, you need to set its IP in the same subnetwork as your computer. For example, if your IP is 192.168.0.123, you set your rpi address to 192.168.0.X , X being between 2 and 254 and different from your computer IP.
To do so, you have to edit /etc/network/interfaces file of your rpi and set the IP as static, accessing the file system by the sd card.
You can ssh your board using putty (available on windows), test the connection works.
After that, you can work properly with Netbeans