Visual Studio Code for Python Programmers

April Speight

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119773368
• eBook ISBN: 9781119773375
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

Become proficient and efficient with Visual Studio Code and learn how to integrate all your external tools!

Visual Studio Code for Python Programmers helps Python developers become not just familiar, but productive in Visual Studio Code. To start, you'll find the steps for installing Visual Studio Code on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, along with an introduction to the editing features of the workspace. Coverage of more advanced functionality includes managing source code, debugging, unit testing, and Jupyter Notebook support. The book finishes with a walk-through of real-world projects which utilize Visual Studio Code features introduced in the book.

For developers, the choice of an editor is a very personal one. You have idiosyncratic needs and wants that are unique to you as a developer. This book will help you learn how to customize Visual Studio Code to meet your needs and Python development workflow.

• Introduces you to the features of the Visual Studio Code workspace and how those features can be customized
• Demonstrates how Visual Studio Code allows you to choose your structure according to your needs
• Covers editing code in Python, including syntax highlighting, code completion, object definition, refactoring, and code navigation
• Describes Git integration and how to perform common Git functions (commits, checkouts, branches, and merges) from within Visual Studio Code
• Highlights debugging features for Python developers

A final section on Real World Applications will step you through several examples (and features integration with Django, Flask, Jupyter Notebook, Docker, and Azure), so you can hit the ground running with Visual Studio Code.

Part I
Welcome to Visual Studio Code

In This Part

• Chapter 1: Getting Started
• Chapter 2: Hello World for Python
• Chapter 3: Editing Code

CHAPTER 1
Getting Started

When you began your Python development journey, you were most likely introduced to Python's Integrated Development and Learning Environment (IDLE). IDLE's simplicity is ideal for newcomers but leaves much to be desired by those who are more comfortable with the language and are in need of an efficient and productive workflow. A range of code editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) are available for Python development—some for general development with multilanguage support (such as Atom or Sublime) and others built exclusively for Python (such as PyCharm). Selecting a development environment is a matter of personal preference. As an experienced programmer, you might have already tried a few editors and thus are aware of what features you most desire. If you're in need of an extensible code editor that provides ample flexibility, efficiency, and productivity for managing Python source code, then Visual Studio Code is well worth your consideration.

Visual Studio Code (also referred to as VS Code) is a free, open-source, and cross-platform code editor developed by Microsoft. Ranked as the Most Popular Development Environment in the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code is a feature-rich highly customizable code editor that not only is great for editing source code but has built-in support for collaboration and cloud-hosted environments. Visual Studio Code's source code is available in the product's GitHub repository at github.com/microsoft/vscode. You're welcome to contribute to the project and can also view the product roadmap within the repository. Visual Studio Code is updated monthly with new features and bug fixes. For early adopters, the VS Code Insiders build provides a new build at least every day with features and bug fixes.

Visual Studio Code has built-in support only for JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, and CSS, but it supports many additional languages, such as Python, through extensions. Before you begin programming in Python, you must install the extension. You can then begin to familiarize yourself with the editor's interface within the context of Python.

Installing Visual Studio Code

As a free, cross-platform code editor, Visual Studio Code runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Download Visual Studio Code from code.visualstudio.com. If the browser doesn't detect your operating system, visit code.visualstudio.com/#alt-downloads for more options. Platform-specific installation steps are available at code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/setup-overview. Both macOS and Windows provide the option to add Visual Studio Code to your PATH environment variable. Adding Visual Studio Code to your PATH environment variable provides the convenience of opening a folder directly from the console using the command code <folder> or code. (to open the current folder).

As mentioned, Microsoft releases a new version of Visual Studio Code often with new features and important bug fixes. If your platform supports auto-updating, Visual Studio Code prompts you to install the new release when it becomes available. As an alternative, you can manually check for updates by running Help ➪ Check For Updates on Linux and Windows or by running Code ➪ Check For Updates on macOS.

---

NOTE If you're interested in tryin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Part I: Welcome to Visual Studio Code
• Part II: Additional Visual Studio Code Features
• APPENDIX: Getting Started with Azure
• Index
• Copyright
• Dedication
• About the Author
• About the Technical Editor
• Acknowledgments
• End User License Agreement