I don't know about you guys, but I hate trying to program in assembler. My C isn't all that good either. So, with that being said, for those of you who dabble in Atmel AVR type stuff, might I recommend BASCOM AVR.
BASCOM is a free IDE/Compiler/Programmer/Simulator for the BASIC programming language. The version of BASIC used in BASCOM for the AVR microcontrollers is a little different than QBASIC, but not much. It is very easy to learn, and is a good place to start for someone who is just getting into microncontrollers. And the hardware needed to program the AVR chip with the BASCOM software is as simple as it gets. A couple of caps, a resistor or two and freq crystal on some perf board with a cable and an IC socket is all you need.
The BASCOM demo is free and is fully functional except that code size is limited. I cant remember what the limits are, but it is several kB which is more than enough for most applications.
http://www.mcselec.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=41 (http://www.mcselec.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=41)
Sorry if this already been posted somewhere else.
Definitely a choice for some of us who did some programming back in the DOS 3.3 days and abandoned it for a decade+!
I have been using it for a few months along with other languages, it's the easiest so far.