[sgillen]

You are correct, the "Arduino language" is just C++ with some special libraries, macros, added types, and an IDE that enforces some limitations on the programmer (though you can use the Arduino library without the IDE).

In practice using this library/ecosystem/whatever is different enough from "normal" embedded C/C++ libraries that to me at least to me it does feel like a different language.

I think most people call it a language out of ignorance or laziness though.

[neltnerb]

I thought they insisted on calling it "Processing"?

I just write standard C++ or C code and it compiles fine. Hard to complain about that too much if I don't care to use the extra features. You can just access registers directly even if you use the Arduino IDE and configure things yourself if you want.

But yeah, I'd personally use visual studio code if I wasn't going to want to use the arduino libraries anyway. It's not a great editor. VS Code probably isn't that great either, but it's good enough for the little coding I do (I mostly design circuit boards that frequently use these little boards as brains).

[bkanber]

The Arduino IDE is certainly a fork of the Processing IDE. The language is different: Arduino is C/C++, Processing is Java. But Arduino did take a bunch of UX (or call it "DX") from the Processing lang.

[jki275]

Just use platform io... it works inside VS Code and lets you use arduino and other frameworks if you want to do so.