I am wanting to learn to program PICS in C I have a PIckit 3 programmer and an arduino I have done some coding in the arduino and PICBASIC, and i want to move to using C for pics I need help with choosing a C compiler for the PICS and if possible one or two books to help smooth things over.

I have Programming PIC Microcontrollers with PICBASIC (Embedded Technology) by Chuck Hellebuyck
but feel limited by the compiler mainly in terms of cost.

Thanks in advance for your help

 

For programming PICs. Install MPLAB and then download one of the C compilers that fits your PIC controller. They are all free. In the free mode you will get very little code optimization. Code optimization means that your final code that goes into the controller will be larger. But that does matter much for the beginner. So to get started your software cost will be zero, and 100% legal also

 

If you roll over to the embedded systems forum next door down here there is a sticky thread at top that answers this precise question. Near the end I have a post with links for some tools and things you would like to have.

 

The BoostC compiler has a free version that's as optimized as any other. They just restrict your use of RAM and program size. But my experience is that you need to be using fairly large programs before you hit the limits.