Is it hard to configure Arduino into Visual Studio?

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

I would like to use Arduino as part of my robots hardware, however most of my code runs in visual studio, along with the maestro motor controller.

Is it difficult to configure the arduino into visual studio so I can write the code there?

2

I'm not familiar with VS. Does it allow to use a third party compiler (gcc) and libraries? If not, you still can develop your C++ code in VS, then compile and upload using e.g. Atmel Studio.

3

I use Atmel Studio 7 exclusively. It's free and was built with Visual Studio so it looks and feels exactly the same. Download it and you'll never want to use anything else again...especially the Arduino IDE.

You will need a programmer though. I was using the SPARKFUN programmer, but it was taking about 25 seconds to load versus the Atmel Ice which is much faster and reduced this to about 9 seconds. Of course, there is the price difference to consider.

-Laggy