ICSP: In-Circuit Serial Programming is great

At the beginning of my PIC journey, when I want to program *.hex file to my PIC microcontroller, I have to remove the PIC from the circuit board and place it on my PIC programmer to program the *.hex file to it and then I remove it from the programmer and put the PIC back to the circuit board. If I want to re-program the PIC, I have to repeat the process again. This process is very painful and it can cause PIC's pins broken.

Soon after I did a lot of that painful processes, I have discovered that my PIC programmer supports ICSP.

ICSP : In Circuit Serial Programming is very useful when I want to program *.hex file to PIC microcontroller while the PIC is on the circuit board. I just plug the ICSP plug to the ICSP jack on the circuit board. The ICSP jack for PIC microcontroller has a circuit like picture below. Now, I put ICSP jack to all of my PIC projects and I can easily upgade their firmware.