Being new here and always liking to add my two cents I'll say that if I can get past some of the learning curve I'd be starting with PicBasic only because I do not want to spend a bunch of money to complete one project and not evening knowing if I will build other projects in the future.

I wouldn't go looking for a free copy although I do wonder if the free demo copy online would actually work for me since I do not expect very many lines of code to begin with.

Bart