If BASIC is under consideration, this one seems good.

http://gcbasic.sourceforge.net/

Free, and you can get in and modify a lot of it, so it's a nice bridge to
assembler or as a trainer in getting to know PICs. Lots of chips supported.
Accepts inline assembly code too.

Forum support is there, but can be slow, but if you're not needing it
professionally, or are in education, or want to use something to get started
with and halfway get you to be intimate with the PIC with minimal pain, this
one is good for that.



Larry Bradley wrote:
> If you are just interested as a hobby, as opposed to doing some professional stuff, take a look at Basic18
> 
> http://www.midwest-software.com/Basic18/basic18.htm
> 
> It is a surprisingly good Basic compiler for the 18 series. It is only $50, generates pretty good code, has floating point support, extensions to handle the PIC hardware, a reasonable library of routines, etc. It support in-line assembler as well.
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