for a cheap programmer, grab the one here; (australian shop)
https://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=K9505S
its easy to build, and comes with complete instructions, and the information on where to get the programmer (IC-Prog). The Addon boards are so that you can program 18/28/40 pin pics in the 16X series, ie, 16F628, 16F88, 16F877.
For a great (probably the best) developement tool, you cant go past Proton+
**broken link removed**
the lite version limits your code to 50 lines, and with the following PIC's
• 12C508
The 8-pin, 12-bit 12C508 device is arguably the best-selling microcontroller of all-time, but has now been superceded by the 14-bit 12Fxxx range.
• 12F675
The 8-pin, 14-bit 12F675 is one of the new breed of PICmicros® that incorporates advantages such as ADC, comparators, on-chip EEPROM and of course Flash re-programmability.
• 16F628A
The 18-pin, 14-bit 16F628A is the sucessor to the ever popular, but now very outdated, 16F84 device. The 16F628A offers 2KBytes of code space, 128Bytes of RAM, on-chip EEPROM, comparators, USART and hardware PWM.
• 16F877
The 40-pin, 14-bit 16F877 is the Rolls-Royce of the 14-bit core devices and contains 8KBytes of code space, 368Bytes of RAM, 256Bytes of on-chip EEPROM and more on-chip features than you can shake a stick at - such a USART, HPWM, etc, and is the obvious choice for any new design.
But If you like it, then buy it!! the development tools such as ISIS alow you to not only simulate your code line by line, but in an actual circuit with LCD's/keypads/thousands of different digital/anologue components! And the updates for Proton+ are free, unlike other development tools, check out my website for a begginers insight to pic programming in Proton+