VSCode with Python. It's great.

Installing VSCode

Installing VSCode is really easy. Either download from your software center, or via code.visualstudio.com. Then start the program. It should look something like this.

Writing the first program

Click “New File”, and create an empty text document saved as example.py somewhere. Now print “Hello World”. It should look like this:

Installing the Python Extension for VSCode

You see that little window telling you to install Python in the far bottom corner? Click install. If that’s not an option, click on the building blocks icon to the left of the screen, and then install Python.

Changing the version

Let’s look in the far bottom right corner. To change the version of Python, click the number to the right of “Python”, which probably for you is 3 point something. Now click it. You might only get Python 3 in the popup, this means you do not have Python 2 installed. If you want to use that as well, be sure to run install that first. To do that, install the package most likely called python-2, on Debian based systems that would be sudo apt install python-2. Now you can switch version.

BUT HOW DO I RUN THE CODE?!?!

You see that icon with the arrow and bug? Click it. Then click “Run and Debug” Done.

Conclusion

Python is cool.

• Jonte