Please be gentle with me as this is my first post and I am new to Python. I have downloaded and installed Python 3.9 on Windows 10 64 bit. This all seems to work fine and I can code, debug and run Python scripts within the IDLE IDE.
The next step was to install Visual Studio Code and the Python extension - which I have done. However, the Microsoft instructions state that I need to click on the status bar and select Python 3.9. I do not have a Python option in my status bar…
Two things. One, this category is more for people who work on editors and IDEs to talk about stuff, not support. For the Python extension for VS Code you can ask for help at microsoft/vscode-python Q A · Discussions · GitHub.
But two, the reason you don’t see it is you have not triggered the launch of a Python extension yet. If you open a Python file then you will trigger the loading of the Python extension and then you will see the environment in the status bar.
I’ve used Pycharm on and off for years, but always went back to Emacs. However, 8 months ago I switched to VS Code and barely looked back. I now miss it when it’s not installed.
Wow - two very experienced disclaimers by Guido and Brett ! My experience with VS Code is limited, but my observation is that both Emacs and VS Code have a high learning curve, especially when integrating complex environments. I’m actually heading back to IDLE and Thonny to get my head squared away for some simpler, gradual approach to basics of how to use an IDE . I think I dived in too fast and expected it to be made clear to me right away.
My actual use case for trying VS Code was integrating Python Macros in LibreOffice Calc ( I was working on my 2025 Taxes using the Excel1040 spreadsheet.
Needless to say, I entered very deep waters indeed (because the Python macro environment in a running LibreOffice environment is somewhat opaque and never fully integrates with VS Code)! I got it to work well enough to avoid retyping all my tax data each ti tme a revision of Excel 1040 was released - but VS code still doesnt recognize the embedded Python environment for me, with error messages from PyLance - but I guess that doesn’t apply to this thread. [and yes, it was good enough to save me time on doing my taxes b4 deadline]
Still impressed by both the originator of Python and a core person of VS Code addressing a newbie’s question however.
