Microsoft released the updated March version for its popular Python extension for Visual Studio (VS Code), the widely used code editor across platforms. It also released an updated version for Java in VS code with support for the IDE extension, SolarLint.
The most significant change in the Python for VS Code update is a new Python debugger called debugpy, an implementation of the Python Debug Adapter Protocol. The tool allows developers to debug scripts and modules from the command line, as well as enable debug logging.
Until now, VS code had built-in debugging support for JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, etc., while extensions from the VS code marketplace enabled support for other languages such as Python, Go, C# and C++.
Microsoft has also made it easier to attach dpbugpy to processes running on the user's machine.
“Sometimes you may want to attach your debugger to a Python process running on machine , but this can be difficult if, for example, you don't have control over the application that started that process,” explains Luciana de Melo e Abud, program manager for the Python extension in VS Code.
On the Java side of VS Code, Microsoft introduced the editing feature for standalone Java files and support for the recently released SolarLint extension for detecting code quality and security on the fly.
Microsoft says it aims for VS Code to be “very fast” when developing in Java. This update to the Java extension for VS Code promises noticeably faster times for resolving Maven and Eclipse projects.
The syntax mode warns Java developers with the message “Classpath is incomplete” when they open a Java file that does not belong to a project.
“Many developers complained about this rather useless warning, so in this release we decided to provide a dedicated way to read Java code outside of project code,” said Xiaokai He, senior Java program manager for Visual Studio Code and Azure.
The syntax mode allows the user to read code more efficiently with the help of the ” Code Navigation” and ” Outline” features, while also reporting errors for improvement.
The SolarLint IDE promises to help Java developers in VS Code fix issues before they occur with spell checks that are run on incorrect code.
SolarLint was already supported in Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA and the Visual Studio IDE. SolarLint's support for Java code in VS code is the result of collaboration between members of the SolarLint team, Red Hat and Microsoft.
