1 min

Visual Studio Code, Microsoft’s code editing tool, gets a new version of the Python extension. Among the improvements are improvements for Jupyter notebooks and less heavy configuration notifications.

Currently, the Python extension is the most popular programming language extension on the Visual Studio Code Marketplace. More than 16 million installations have already taken place. Earlier this year, a large update was already rolled out. The new update adds to this.

Jupyter Notebook

Jupyter Notebook is an application that allows Python to be run in-browser, which saves a lot of hassle for developers. According to Microsoft, this tool now starts two to three times faster when opening the Notebook Editor. The start from the Jupyter server is also faster, which was already the case with the last update. Moreover, it now starts in the background as soon as a notebook is opened, which in turn ensures that the first ‘code cell’ is processed faster. Cells provide a way to run code in pieces, for example, to test only one particular part of the code.

Furthermore, alerts have been scaled back. These alerts appeared when Visual Studio Code users had an interpreter selected for a workspace. Now the alerts have been scaled back for new configurations, because they had a rather dominant effect, according to Microsoft. “In this version, we have scaled back the alerts for the installation of tools. They are now only displayed if an interpreter is selected”.