Why Write Python in Visual Studio? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#11

Post by ohitsdom » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

bliti wrote: post #7

ohitsdom wrote: post #3

I'm a .NET developer so to me this is a slam dunk. How does the Python crowd feel though? I'd guess the majority tend to be Microsoft-adverse. Why wouldn't you use VS when it seems to be so ahead of the competition?

When you say ahead of the competition, what do you mean? Ive used it before (2005, 2008, 2010), but it was just another IDE. How have things improved?

I work in Visual Studio exclusively for my day job the last 8 years so my experience is pretty limited. But every time I try out other languages and IDEs on my own time, I'm almost shocked at how hard the tools are to work with compared with Visual Studio. VS has excellent intellisense. Compile and runtime errors are clearly pointed out, usually with helpful error messages. And real-time debugging and being able to set variable watches make developing much easier. Compine that with the new integrated performance/memory profiling tools and it's a slam dunk.

These tools may be available in other IDEs, but they are so easy to use in Visual Studio. Again, this may be due to my experience and familiarity, but I haven't found anything close. In theory Eclipse should be able to compete since the debug capabilities should be the same (.NET vs JVM) but it was disappointing. Cludgy IDE, poor intellisense. And even creating a simple Java console application required several manual configuration steps. In .NET you can have a new console app running in 2 clicks, and it's pretty intuitive so even new users shouldn't be too overwhelmed.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#12

Post by bliti » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #9

bliti wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say ahead of the competition, what do you mean? Ive used it before (2005, 2008, 2010), but it was just another IDE. How have things improved?

2013 was a pretty big jump (IMO) for Visual studio. It added some cool features that I use all the time. Filtering in the solution explorer. Peeking definition. Code Lens Parallel watch. (Ultimate Only) Number of references listed above the function and tests associate with it. 2015 has some even cooler stuff. It shows memory and cpu usage as you debug any program (tests/console/etc). You can call linq from the watch…

I assume those features are strictly for the MS stack. Am I wrong? Do they work with Python? In terms of costs, what do you pay for it (including the OS)?

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#13

Post by bargl » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

na85 wrote: post #8

ohitsdom wrote: post #3

I'm a .NET developer so to me this is a slam dunk. How does the Python crowd feel though? I'd guess the majority tend to be Microsoft-adverse. Why wouldn't you use VS when it seems to be so ahead of the competition?

IntelliSense is pretty good, sure, but emacs is a superior development environment in nearly every other aspect.

How so and what is your experience with both? I've been using VS for a few years now, I used Emacs in college, but I much prefer VS (although I haven't touched Emacs for a long time so I'd like to hear more about what you like about it more).

Does it have good integration with things like Peeking defintion, code lense, Debugging with watch variables/autos, etc?

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#14

Post by ohitsdom » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

na85 wrote: post #8

ohitsdom wrote: post #3

I'm a .NET developer so to me this is a slam dunk. How does the Python crowd feel though? I'd guess the majority tend to be Microsoft-adverse. Why wouldn't you use VS when it seems to be so ahead of the competition?

IntelliSense is pretty good, sure, but emacs is a superior development environment in nearly every other aspect.

I've never used emacs so am completely ignorant. What makes emacs superior? All I know is the speed that can come with keyboard shortcuts.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#15

Post by dimino » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

I was going to write a little client library for a REST API my city's transport system exposes, and I think I'll try this out on my gaming PC, rather than my intended plan of writing it on my Macbook.

My worry is it's going to create VS-specific files, which I'm adamantly opposed to (or any IDE-specific files, for that matter). We'll see, though. I guess I tolerate the .idea directory already, I just don't want to depend on the VS files, similarly to how I have a .gitignore line for .idea currently.

I can't be sure if it's because I already had cygwin installed on my PC prior to my upgrade to 10, but I'm very pleased with the updated cmd.exe. I think I recall ctrl C/P working as expected too!

Right now I'm dealing with a weird encoding issue when I SSH to my Ubuntu box from CMD.exe, but I'm sure it's just a setting somewhere I've got to tweak.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#16

Post by ohitsdom » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #6

I like VS but is this fundamentally better than PyDev? I've become accustomed to Eclipse so I get auto-complete and full interactive debugging already.

In my experience (C# & Java), Eclipse's autocomplete doesn't even come close to Intellisense. Not sure if that gap is any different with Python.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#17

Post by TillE » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

mvid wrote: post #5

I write Python professionally, and it will be pretty hard to get me away from PyCharm. I don't see anything in the blog post that indicates a feature PyCharm doesn't already have.

> a feature PyCharm doesn't already have

It's free.

I'm sure there are a lot of Python developers who already have a full-featured IDE they love, but then there are also people (like me) who sometimes write Python and just use Sublime Text or Vim. Or even Eclipse.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#18

Post by antihero » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

ohitsdom wrote: post #3

I'm a .NET developer so to me this is a slam dunk. How does the Python crowd feel though? I'd guess the majority tend to be Microsoft-adverse. Why wouldn't you use VS when it seems to be so ahead of the competition?

If they had VS on OSX I'd definitely give it a shot. Unfortunately, they don't, yet.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#19

Post by compostor42 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

mvid wrote: post #5

I write Python professionally, and it will be pretty hard to get me away from PyCharm. I don't see anything in the blog post that indicates a feature PyCharm doesn't already have.

Agreed.

PyCharm makes my developer life so much better....

I've been converting people from Eclipse to IntelliJ/PyCharm left and right at work.

Re: Why Write Python in Visual Studio?

#20

Post by bmj » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

ohitsdom wrote: post #11

bliti wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say ahead of the competition, what do you mean? Ive used it before (2005, 2008, 2010), but it was just another IDE. How have things improved?

I work in Visual Studio exclusively for my day job the last 8 years so my experience is pretty limited. But every time I try out other languages and IDEs on my own time, I'm almost shocked at how hard the tools are to work with compared with Visual Studio. VS has excellent intellisense. Compile and runtime errors are clearly pointed out, usually with helpful error messages. And real-time debugging and being able to s…

Did you work with other IDEs/languages before you started working with VS?

I typically use VS every day (currently on 2013), and yes, I have a similar experience with other IDEs. Then I remember that I know VS pretty well, and maybe that's why this other IDE doesn't seem so great. If I spent 8 years with a different IDE, and someone gave me VS2015, I'd probably have that same "this clearly isn't as awesome as X" feeling.