I think Microchip has lagged behind in the hobby ... and those resistors would be a bit fiddly to solder to a proper programming header, but it’s possible. That standalone programmer idea ...

PICkit 2 programmers will work with another program called pk2cmd hosted by Microchip here ... The first line is the #include for the header file of the particular chip you will be using.

PIC processor vendor Microchip has rolled a new version of its Windows-based MPLAB development tool. The MPLAB ICD 3 package builds on the prior generation ICD 2 debugger offering in-circuit debugging ...

CEC1702 users can now benefit from using Microchip's development tools and support rather than being required to invest in third-party tools for programming and debugging. "A better and faster ...