Always necessary to program a PIC to get to work?

[dighom]

Already asked this question here, but may be someone interested in this section, too:

Is ist necessary to program the PIC 12C508 to work as needed in this schematic of R.G.Keen?
Or just solder and everything's well?

[iaresee]

You need to give it a program to run. You always do with microcontrollers.