Visual Studio Code for Python Developers Transcripts
Chapter: Getting Setup Code with Visual Studio Code
Lecture: Installing VS Code (There Are Choices)
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0:00
So Brian, we just went through how to install different versions of Python, different distributions of Python, right? Like try to understand what version we're going to use in this particular course. But I kind of feel like we should tell people how to get Visual Studio Code installed too. That might be an important thing for us to do. So could you help us out with that?
0:18
It's just a little important and I'd be happy to help you out with that. So to get folks started, if you don't already have Visual Studio Code installed at this module here, this video is going to help you out. You want to go to code.visualstudio.com, which is what we're looking at right now. And here you're going to be presented with a lot of information.
0:34
But one thing I want to call out that may not be exactly apparent because right now it says download for Windows. It's picking up that I am running on a Windows machine right now as we're recording this.
0:45
But VS Code is available for Windows.
0:48
macOS and different distributions of Linux. Your mileage may vary on there, but you get the idea. It's meant to be cross-platform supported on all major operating systems and Linux distribution.
1:00
So keep that in mind if you're looking to install it. You don't need to worry about jumping to a different operating system for the purposes of this course. You use what you want to use. Get Visual Studio Code.
1:10
Now, when you come here, you can click the big blue button to download it for your operating system that you're going to be running on.
1:17
But you don't need to worry about jumping to a different operating system for the purposes of this course. You can click the big blue button to download it for your operating system that you're going to be running on.
1:18
But that's going to give you what's called the stable build, which is typically the blue icon that you see when you're installing it.
1:24
But if you wanted to, you could potentially open up the door to... You want to get a bit adventurous. Cecil, are you feeling adventurous, man?
1:31
I mean, I live on the edge.
1:33
So what you could do then, since that's the case, is you can actually install the Insiders version, which would be... The way you know the difference between them is it has a green icon.
1:43
And what the Insiders version is, is you're getting more frequent updates ahead of time before the stable.
1:47
So you can get more frequent updates ahead of time before the stable release. Now, why you might want to do that?
1:50
Well, I, like Cecil, like to live on the edge and get the latest and greatest features that are coming out in VS Code and be able to test them out and try them in my projects.
1:58
But I also have found that running both... You can run both side by side, by the way.
2:04
But running in Insiders, I rarely ever ran into issues where I would have to stop using that and actually switch over the stable.
2:11
Like maybe two times that's happened in nearly a decade or however long I've been using VS Code. I want to say it's almost... How old is VS Code?
2:20
I don't know, but it's pretty old, okay, at this point.
2:22
And over those many years that I've been using it from the start, two times have I ever really had to shut down Insiders and then just reopen the project in the stable build.
2:31
So try out either one, whichever one you like. If you want to see the difference between them, you look at the icon here. It's green. Okay.
2:38
That signifies that it's Insiders to me, the Insiders version where I'm going to get weekly or daily even updates in the bottom right hand gear.
2:47
Or for me, it's the bottom right hand gear. Okay. So that's the bottom right hand gear. But for others, it might be on the left hand side.
2:50
And then if I'm in the Insider or standard stable version, it'll be looking like this with the blue icon.
2:56
So just calling that out if you're interested in checking out different flavors of Visual Studio Code.
3:02
But you click on that, it gives you the corresponding executable for Windows or DMB or DMG rather for macOS and so forth.
3:10
And you just step through the little installation process and you'll be off and running with Visual Studio Code on your operating system.
3:17
So the only one thing I want to point out with that is, and like Brian said, we like to live on the edge, right?
3:22
And so we often would have both the, I guess, the stable version and the Insiders version on our systems.
3:28
Sometimes when your Insiders version updates and, you know, the folks that build the plugins and the folks that build the editor aren't the same folks.
3:37
And so sometimes, you know, updating to like the bleeding edge version might make some of your VS Code extensions freak out a little bit.
3:45
I'm just like, it's okay. Nothing bad is going to happen. It's going to happen on your computer or your machine.
3:49
But you can expect that, again, when you're living on the edge, sometimes things are going to happen, right?
3:54
And so that's usually why I like to have both. I have like the Insiders version and the stable version.
3:59
So I can kind of see how the worlds are different, right? And look at the updates, but also see how like my extensions react to that as well. Yeah.
4:07
It's great you bring that up because there's actually a third flavor of Visual Studio Code, if you will, that you can potentially use.
4:14
It's outside the scope of this course, but there is a web.
4:17
So if you're using something like GitHub Codespaces or some type of cloud development environment, it can leverage most of, if not all of Visual Studio Code, just like the one that you would install on your operating system, but in your browser.
4:30
And you get a lot of the conveniences of that without having to pollute your local, you know, machine that you're working on necessarily.
4:38
So you can check that out.
4:40
That's also there under VS Code.dev if you want to go learn more about that and find out ways you can leverage Visual Studio Code.