You can use a webcam with the Pi already, and video4linux2 to capture data from the webcam.
I assume the new camera will also have video4linux2 drivers, although probably not USB-based like the webcams.
However, the software won't really see anything different, except perhaps the device name of the camera is different.
To write such software:
1) Learn C programming.
2) No, really, learn C programming *REALLY WELL*.
3) Read the Video4Linux2 API description.
4) Learn about computer video and image representations and formats.
5) Re-read the Video4Linux2 API description.
6) Write software to capture images and process them using the video4linux2 device API.
OpenCV, Roborealm, ROS, and other packages, can sometimes help disguise the low-level details of the camera device API, but I've found that I really actually need to understand how the devices work, or Imake faulty assumptions that lead me astray anyway.