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VS Code and Python: A Natural Fit for Data Science
What do you get when you combine the No. 1 code editor with the No. 1 programming language for data science?
You get more than 60 million installs of the Python extension for Visual Studio Code, for one thing.
That’s by far the most downloads of any tool in the VS Code Marketplace, which shows two companion extensions ranking in second and third place: Jupyter (40.8 million) and Pylance (33.5 million). The main Python tool has been downloaded almost 27 million more times than the most popular non-Python extension (C/C++, 33.3 million). What’s more, fifth place goes to yet another Python-related tool, Jupyter Keymap, at 23.4 million installs.
So to sum all that up, Python-related VS Code offerings account for four of the top five tools and have been installed a whopping 157.8 million times!
It’s no wonder, then, that a presenter at the EuroPython show in Dublin tomorrow will share “why VS Code is now the #1 tool for Python Data Scientists according to the 2021 Python Software Foundation Developer Survey, and how you can leverage VS Code to take your data science productivity to the next level” in a presentation titled “Python & Visual Studio Code – Revolutionizing the way you do data science.”
The abstract for the session says: “Visual Studio Code along with GitHub, Codespaces, and Azure Machine Learning have been investing substantially into tools and platforms to make the lives of Python data scientists easier.”
Indeed, the cited Python developer survey conducted last fall shows VS Code is the most popular main IDE/editor in the Python camp, even ranking above the Python-specific PyCharm IDE from JetBrains (which conducted the survey of more than 23,000 Python developers in conjunction with the Python Software Foundation).
[Click on image for larger view.] Main IDE/Editor (source: JetBrains/Python Software Foundation).
“The combined share of the PyCharm Community and Professional editions is 31 percent, which is close to last year’s result. VS Code has grown by 6 percentage points compared to last year,” the survey report states.
“Interestingly, PyCharm and VS Code are equally popular among web developers (39 percent), while data scientists prefer VS Code by 9 percentage points more as their main IDE.”
[Click on image for larger view.] Data Science vs. Web Development (source: JetBrains/Python Software Foundation).
Also interestingly, VS Code’s ascension to No. 1 in the Python developer survey has come fairly recently. In the 2018 survey, for example, it garnered only 16 percent of respondent votes, sandwiched in the No. 2 slot between No. 1 PyCharm Professional Edition and No. 3 PyCharm Community Edition.
[Click on image for larger view.] Top Editors and IDEs Reported by Both Data Science and Web Developers in 2018 Report (source: JetBrains/Python Software Foundation).
That ascension shouldn’t be too surprising, though, as Microsoft years ago went all in on the Python stakes, even hiring software engineer Don Jayamanne, who created that super-popular Python extension for VS Code mentioned above. It then put out a siren call for more Python developers.
After that, Microsoft upped the table stakes even higher, in 2020 hiring the creator of Python itself, Guido van Rossum. Microsoft recently reported that van Rossum and the company’s CPython performance team have been improving the language’s core runtime, which will make Python 3.1 10-60 percent faster than Python 3.10, depending on the workload.
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Source: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2022/07/12/python-vs-code.aspx