I think the point that skimask was trying to get over, is that for a 1st program, the main goal is to get the chip to flash a LED correctly, then go on to develope that.

A golden rule here is to look at the datasheet, and then set the pic up accordingly. Often these small chips don't have their pins set to digital i/o by default, so need the config set accordingly.

Once you have a bit of code that blinks an LED, then introduce inputs and modify the code to get the result you want.