Throughout these tutorials, we shall examine in a fair amount of detail the commands which it is expected you will find most useful. It is hoped that they will give you all the necessary information that will enable you to conceive a design in which you can use the PICmicro to control whatever situation you wish, and to write the code which enables it to do so.

There is, though, much more to writing programs than you may at this moment fully appreciate. Knowledge about individual commands and the way in which they can be used is not enough in itself. Programming is a way of looking at the world in a fashion that other people may not recognise. You must have the mental ability to see each programming situation as a step-by-step function, analysing in your mind exactly how it is that you need to specify the complete program flow.

You have to write the sequence of events with the correct grammar, with the correct spelling and in the correct order.

Undoubtedly you will make mistakes while you are writing the code, failing to see the correct sequence of events and using incorrect command structures. You require the ability to analyse what you have done wrong and to correct it. You are likely to be confronted with an overall task that may, on occasion, take you into several days or even weeks of dedicated concentration.

Programming, to those who have the ability to see things "as they are" and not "how they seem to be", can become extremely addictive. You could find yourself compelled to get back to the keyboard and PICmicro programmer at any conceivable hour!