A quick and dirty technique is appropriate in some situations. Set your camera to create the biggest .jpg. Choose the color space for it, sRGB or Adobe RGB. Bring the .jpg’s into your computer, open them in something like FastStone, and save them as .tif’s. Those .tif’s will stand up to a moderate amount of adjustments in RT and other processing programs.
But for precise, caring work, RT from the beginning is it. The other raw developers seem to have their own secret sauce, too. I use DxO PhotoLab for some photos. Even with the so-called neutral, no-correction preset, the image opens with a distinct “PhotoLab look.”