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Programming language Python's popular extension for Visual Studio Code revamped
While Python has become the go-to language for data scientists and machine-learning applications, VS Code – Microsoft's lightweight code editor that works on Windows, macOS, and Linux – has become somewhat of a hit with developers, even within Google.
In 2016, a year after Microsoft open-sourced VS Code it had 500,000 developers using it. By November 2017, VS Code had 2.6 million developers using it each month, representing year-on-year growth of 160 percent.
In December 2018, Microsoft chief marketing officer Chris Capossela told ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley and fellow Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott that the "majority of Google developers are using it now".
The open-source Microsoft editor now has 4.5 million users and was ranked the most popular developer environment for two years running in Stack Overflow's global developer survey.
Meanwhile, Python has seen a huge and sustained rise in popularity among developers, who now ask more questions each month on Stack Overflow about it than JavaScript, which historically has attracted the most questions.
The updated Python extension fixes 84 issues and now includes a Variable Explore and a Data Viewer within the Python Interactive window. The new features were "highly requested" from users, according to Microsoft, and will allow developers and data scientists to view, inspect and filter variables in their apps.
So fellow Soylentils, has anyone tried this combination as a Python IDE and if so, what did you think?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:19PM (4 children)
I hear good things about Visual Studio Code. Open source. Cross platform.
But I just don't trust Microsoft. And there are good alternatives.
When I hear they use Visual Studio Code, my level of respect for them declines a slight bit. Do they just not know better? I suddenly have a slight bit of distrust. A knee jerk reaction created by decades of Microsoft behavior.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:00PM (3 children)
When I see statements like this here or on "that other site", I don't lose respect for the people that write them, but I do put them in the "ideologically bent" category. I used MS's IDEs for years when I developed professionally. I could have used vi, gdb, and the other *NIX tools if I had to, but my productivity would have taken a major hit. In the unlikely event that MS was somehow able to yank that tool away from me without any warning, I would have been bombed back to the stone-age. The real enemy for us is not so much MS, or Apple, or any company, but "change imposed from without". Open Source is not immune. See, systemd, or the patron of your favorite distro stops supporting it and quality declines. Change from without. A new order, not to your liking, imposed by others. That's the real enemy.
MS-bashing? I think it's a bit strong to say I "lose respect" for people that do it. I couldn't, because it's so prevalent in the community so I'd have no respect for anybody. But I do tend to think of such people as being kind of basic.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:35PM
I'd describe it as "toxic, erosive change without a need for change, but for change's sake only." OS X / MacOS, Linux, Windows... and many, many applications including core languages and IDEs.
As a Python dev, Python 3's approach to change WRT Python 2 is a perfect example of "how to really screw this evolution up by breaking existing stuff for no good reason at all, plus, let's not provide any fallbacks, because just fucking existing code up wasn't good enough."
Qt is also high in the hall of shame here. The transition from QT4 to QT5 was one of the most clueless, inherently broken, and amateur bits of fucktardedness I have ever had the misfortune to endure.
--
Cashier: "Did you find everything?"
Me: "Why, are you hiding stuff?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:02PM (1 child)
I don't agree with the "ideologically bent" categorization, at least not for those of a certain age. If one is old enough to have been very active in computers in the 90s and 2000s, then one could be forgiven for harboring very negative views of Microsoft for many many reasons that do not need to be rehashed. If one was continuously screwed either directly or indirectly by them, and remember they were not indifferent but rather extremely hostile to the entire industry, just because they are not perceived to be as bad now doesn't make up for the decades of bad behavior they inflicted. If someone goes to their 20th high school reunion and meets up with the bully who inflicted lots of emotional and/or physical abuse on one, but finds them now to be pretty much a "normal" person, I don't consider them to be driven by any philosophy (other than self-preservation) if they do not harbor warm feelings towards the person now; this is simply once-bitten, twice-shy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:48PM
Ya, I'm the AC you're replying to, and I was working during most of the 90s. The funny thing to me is that the vast majority of those people never had anything happen to them as a direct result of MS that wasn't just about the same from any other source.
If anything, MS is *worse* now, but not because of their own ideology. They're worse because they picked up bad habits from Google and Facebook. Windows 10 is trying to monetize you and spy on you every single day. Prior versions of Windows only monetized you for the license. Once you paid that, you were done being monetized and if you got spied on it was usually your own fault.
I miss those old days--when MS got bashed for copying everything good. Now they don't get bashed nearly enough for copying everything *bad*.