I think my modus operandi for now will be to simulate the program in the Simulator, debug it that way, and then download it to the chip and cross my fingers it works. I did run into some issues today where it appeared that the IDE wasn't seeing my #include command. It was giving me errors upon trying to build it where it seemed to think that my status, trisa, trisb, etc. were undefined. Upon poking around the internet, I found someone mention that you should include a "udata" directive before any registers you define yourself, and then a "code" directive when you are ready to start the program code. Just putting those two words in cleared up all the errors and the project built. That made me think "Man, I really need to sit down with the IDE user's guide (all 274 pages of it) and really figure this out. But a quick search for the term "udata" turns up nothing. What voodoo have I invoked here?
Also, I'm now beginning to feel like there is a special "place" for what you type into the editor. One, I feel, should not put a directive in the first column, as that is reserved for labels. Again, this was never mentioned in the Wilmshurst book I'm reading... what other norms is one expected to follow when entering code as it pertains to the columns?