Unfortunately, your friend is wrong about it being a drop in replacement. The hardware is rather different (once again ultrasonic vs. optical), which means that the sensor uses different types of pins with completely different data coming from them. Of course anything is possible if you want to put enough resources into it, so you could re-write the software to make it work. But the VL53L0X isn’t really an upgrade to the SR04. When I was designing the Altura I specifically used the ultrasonic sensor because it worked much better in this application. Here’s a video pointing out what I discovered…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGtD93wb7xI
The thing the optical sensor is much better at is detecting distance of angled objects, which isn’t necessary in the Altura’s application. What I wanted was accuracy, which the SR04 is much better at. Another factor is stability; and if anyone is trying to use an optical sensor on a stage with unpredictable stage lights, that could be a problem. There is a lot of light pollution in the IR range in those types of environments.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts.
-Brach