Setting up Visual Studio Code for Python development Click on the Extensions icon in the Activity Bar on the side of the window (it looks like four squares). In the search bar, type “Python”.

Microsoft is making available to Python developers a free, open-source add-on to its Visual Studio suite.

The updated Python extension is available for download from Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code) marketplace, where it's currently the most popular programming language by a long mile.

Over the past few years, it has exploded in popularity. Thanks to Microsoft’s Python extension for Visual Studio Code, VS Code has also become one of the best tools for working with Python.

The Visual Studio Code dev team added new Python tutorials as part of the regular monthly update, this one for March 2020, bringing the open-source, cross-platform code editor to version 1.44.

But before we do that, we need to install the Python Extension in VS Code. To do so, open Visual Studio Code and click on the Extensions icon.

Anaconda includes Microsoft's Visual Studio cross-platform code editor in its Python-based data science platform.

Microsoft added new Web app tutorials -- covering Django and Flask -- to its Python documentation for Visual Studio and its open source little cousin, the cross-platform Visual Studio Code editor.