Setting up exercism python track with Visual Studio Code

Here's a fairly good setup for getting the python track of exercism working with virtual env and Visual Studio Code.

virtual env

create one, and install the following packages:

pip install pylint autopep8 # always
pip install pytest pytest-cache # minimum
pip install pytest-pep8 pdb # bonus

visual studio code

Don Jayanmanne’s Python extension

unit testing (using virtualenv/pyvenv)

Configure using Run All Unit Tests which will add

settings.json
{
    "python.unitTest.pyTestArgs": [
        "."
    ],
    "python.unitTest.pyTestEnabled": true
}

ignore certain pylint warnings

settings.json
{
    "python.linting.pylintArgs": [
        "--disable=C0111" 
    ]
}

setup command line tools

first time setup

• install command line tools so you can launch code using code .
• activate your virtual env
• nav to your exercism execise path (don’t open the main python folder, code can only handle a single exercise.
• code .
• verify virtual environment is being used trigger command pallet and run Python: Select Interpreter Workspace (this doesn’t work at the moment since downgrading to 3.5.2
• check that intellisense and linting are working

setup unit tests

useful http://exercism.io/languages/python/tests

Questions

• how do i get code to run unit tests on save
• enable pdb on unit test failure