Agreed. I probably won't spend a $grand for high performance XC8. My reason for wanting to learn the basics of C are several-fold. First, there is a massive wealth of information available to do various things... in C. If I can understand it better, I can port it to PBP. Second, I would like to at least dabble with some of the higher level 16-, 24-, and 32-bit PIC MCUs. Who knows, I may fall in love. Next, my wife & I are Mac users. I started learning Visual Basic (part of the Visual Studio 2015 bundle) to create apps for the PC. As Mac users, my wife is starting to learn X Code for creating Mac apps. It is a variation of C called Objective C. Furthermore, this isn't just a hobby for me, I create electronic gizmos for a living. Having never gone to school for any of it (analog or digital electronics), I have a massive library that I refer to often. I subscribe to about 1/2 dozen electronics magazines, plus receive daily/weekly emails with electronics news & new products. I learned by doing, trial & error. I learned how to learn from books. Working on my New Year's Resolutions, I simply decided it's time for me to learn more of the nuts & bolts of the tools I use every day, acquire some new skills, and refine some comfortable ones.