Visual Studio Code

where does it ever end? Komodo -> Microsoft Visual Studio -> Atom -> Visual Studio Code

I am now learning Visual Studio Code

I am currently using VSC to edit Python to create Geoprocessing scripts that I can run in Docker containers.

It's not finding Python!!

Here is a doc telling where it looks.

Work around the problem

On Murre this was a problem. It's seeing non-existent ArcMap pythons and the emacs python but not the one WindowsApps installed. But the Powershell it launches can see it. So in the Powershell I created a virtual environment and told it to use that.

This works because it will search the current workspace.

python3 -m venv .venv

The better way, adjust settings

This is a better solution, first put the commonly used variables into your user settings, File -> Preferences -> Settings -> User -> Extensions -> Python

This assumes you are using ArcGIS Pro.

Python: Conda path: "C:/Program Files/ArcGIS/Pro/bin/Python/Scripts/conda.exe"
Python: Venv folders: "AppData/Local/ESRI/conda/envs"

Reload VSCode. Then, add this to your workspace .vscode/settings.json:

"python.pythonPath": "${python.venvPath}/arcgispro-py3-vscode/python.exe"

Now when you select a Python version, the right ones should appear. Make sure you pick the right environment (for me I named it "arcgispro-py3-vscode")

Remote development

I've now tried this tutorial and learned it works. Python in a Container I got a simple Flask app running and then switched to running even simpler Python scripts in the container.

When I needed to add volume support I discovered this page: VS Code Remote Development It explains the Remote Development extension pack.

• I can use Remote - SSH to treat a remote machine (say, Bellman) as the host for a remote project. (* As recommended by John Sullivan.)
• I can use Remote - Containers to treat a Docker container as the host.
• I can use Remote - WSL too but I don't use Windows Subsystem for Linux currently.

Docker containers

I can keep the code on the local file system or in the container.

My first tests I used the Dockerfile to load my code into the image. It worked fine.

More options:

• clone from github into a running container
• keep code in a volume mounted on the container

Using a volume seems to make the most sense to me. In that setting I can still easily use command line git.

There is a sample based on python, it starts a Debian container and puts a Bash prompt into a Terminal window. It connects when you do F5. Your code is accessible on the local filesystem and in the mounted volume in the container.

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-remote-try-python