Thank you for the bookmarks. Yes, I agree, this is not very simple topic, so to start I did learn the protocol and some related standards and tried to communicate with the network devices using low level USB to CAN adapters from Windows and Linux computers (can-utils, Kangaroo, etc). Now my task is making a device which would read a few sensors and transmit data into existing CAN. Luckily my application needs to talk to other devices using the base ISO 11898-2 at 500000 bps rate, no J1939, etc.

Initially I was thinking about use of a cheap 8 bit micro with built-in CAN interface (yes, external driver is still needed) but I am now not sure if this is the best solution, possible a low level PIC12 or PIC 16 micro and CAN module is a better way to go? Do you suggest to look into transceivers with partial networking?

Again, thank you for the links for Microchip documents. Do you by chance have bookmarks for PBP3 code samples or something you could share? I saw some for Mikro C compiler but in the past I was very happy with PBP3 and my first choice would be staying with it. Second option could be Mikroelektronika or Microchip compilers