mr_anderson,
For starting with PIC, assembly is the best choice in my opinion, and MPLAB/MPASM from Microchip is what you should use, they are the best software supporting Microchip MCUs (of course!!!), with simulator, and most important, absolutely free.
For writing code for Microchip MCUs for the first time, beside follow the example codes elswhere on internet and Microchip PIC books, you should follow the code templates provided by Microchip along with the MPLAB/MPASM that people easily forget. In the templates, you can find out the structure and principle of the code for the specific PIC, that is very helpful and useful. Also remember that, the template for the same PIC may be slightly different from version to version of MPLAB/MPASM, so you had better to use the right template.
You can find out the code template for PIC16F84A as follows, remember that the actual place is depending on the specific version of MPLAB/MPASM, this is the link for MPLAB v.7.xx:
"C:\Program files\Microchip\MPASM Suite\Template\Code\f84atemp.asm".
Open this file by any text editor program, such as Notepad in Windows, or directly by MPLAB/MPASM, you will gain from that.
Hope something clearer for you. I am very sorry about my long words.
Happy programming.
nguyennam