Developing in VS Code

[khaeru]

Per some oral discussion at today's MESSAGEix team meeting, here's a thread to collect tips for and experiences developing for MESSAGEix in Visual Studio Code. In particular, we can talk about how to easily implement the code style that applies to ixmp, message_ix, message-ix-models, and message_data (private).

[khaeru]

Here are the extensions I use:

• Python (ms-python.python):
  • I use the open-source "jedi" language server rather than the closed-source Pylance.
• Black Formatter (ms-python.black-formatter), configured per the README to format on save.
• isort (ms-python.isort), ditto.

Black output is compliant with flake8, so I don't use any separate tool for that. For typing with mypy, I instead use a Git hook, which I'll post about in a separate discussion/thread.

[gidden]

Amazing, thank you @khaeru ! Will look forward to the mypy hook.

[khaeru]

See here—in a separate discussion because that's not specific to VS Code.

[khaeru]

An update: I've personally:

• Switched to using the Ruff (charliermarsh.ruff) extension to replace both Black and isort; I've uninstalled both.
• Added the first-party Mypy (ms-python.mypy-type-checker) extension.

These two (plus ms-python.python with Jedi per my earlier comment) are sufficient to implement the code style.

For convenience, I also make use of:

• reStructuredText Syntax highlighting (trond-snekvik.simple-rst).
• Todo Tree (Gruntfuggly.todo-tree).

I also note that pre-commit (elagil.pre-commit-helper) exists (apparently to invoke pre-commit on specific files or all files from within VS Code) but I don't currently use it. Unlike the Ruff extension, this appears “unofficial” in the sense that it's not developed or promoted by the developer of pre-commit.