Python developers lose flow in fragmented editor debugging
Python developers and data scientists using VS Code want to run code in a live session, debug it, and inspect its state without leaving their editor workflow. The signals describe unreliable handoffs to IPython, limited debug consoles and variable inspection, and workarounds such as exporting data to CSV or switching IDEs. A focused extension could address much of this Python workflow, though the C/C++ and remote MicroPython requests are adjacent rather than the same problem.
For python developers and data scientists using VS Code. Mentioned from Oct 2016 to Jan 2025 on GitHub and Hacker News.
14 different people described this problem in 9 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 5.0/10
- Pain
- 6.4/10
- Frequency
- 9.8/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- High
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
My current work around is just to write a data frame to a .csv in the current debugger, then load it into Python Interactive - which works well enough, but I think it'd be really helpful if they were somehow integrated!
geophpherie on GitHub (microsoft/vscode-jupyter)Aug 2019+156 upvotesAsked for a toolHas a workaroundI first run a dummy line of code and do SHIFT+ENTER. This opens a terminal, and runs (sometimes...) the code in the normal python REPL. Then I type exit() to exit the python REPL. At the prompt I type ipython to start the IPython REPL
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 4 places to find your first customers
- 15 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks