programming pics and other controllers

i hope someone can help i have pic basic which i use to program my pics, but it seems everywhere i go people write stuff in c language, is microsfts visual c the same thing or something different???? also it seems functions on pic controllers are not always available via the basic method. anyone know where i can info on learning c programming do i need c programming software???



thanks for the help guys.

try the HiTech C

C

Microchip has a free version of C. Their MPLAB2 IDE with the C18 C Compiler student version. Best bet is to get a good book on C. Nothing fancy or specific like for Windows programming, just the basic syntax is all that is needed for PICs since you are just doing embedded programming.