Tom, the PIC has come a long ways, if you have the current version of the MPLAB-X, there is an I/O configurator that will greatly ease the setup of the I/O ports. Since the PICKIT-4 costs the same as the PICKIT-3, silly not to get the latest tool.
The Arduino is programmed basically in C, and so is the PIC, so the mainline logic will be very similar. The difference will be in the I/O configuration.