Ah, you haven't heard of In Circuit Programming.
See the little connector on the top with 5 pins? You put that on each board you build with a PIC, then you just plug that PICKIT 2 or 3 into that and program the PIC in place.
You really don't want to do it any other way. Unplugging the PIC each time you want to program it, is a real pain and you will eventually break a pin off. And for surface mount it would be even worse, you would need a special adaptor for each package, and they would each cost as much as the programmer.
And, if that isn't enough, the PICKIT can then be used as a real-time in circuit debugger on your actual hardware.
Bob
See the little connector on the top with 5 pins? You put that on each board you build with a PIC, then you just plug that PICKIT 2 or 3 into that and program the PIC in place.
You really don't want to do it any other way. Unplugging the PIC each time you want to program it, is a real pain and you will eventually break a pin off. And for surface mount it would be even worse, you would need a special adaptor for each package, and they would each cost as much as the programmer.
And, if that isn't enough, the PICKIT can then be used as a real-time in circuit debugger on your actual hardware.
Bob