Visual Studio 2017 now fully supports Python and Django | Hacker News Reader

Visual Studio 2017 now fully supports Python and Django

visualstudio.com

112 pointsvanflymen52 comments

I just bought VS 2015 in Oct 2016 and there is no upgrade path to VS 2017. Microsoft sold me legacy product and support says I have to pay again. This is still good old money hungry Microsoft that is trying to lure developer into their tools trap.

I'd just use the community edition if the software I was writing is educational or free and open source.

There's astounding amount of companies that are just telling employees to use community edition, too. Haven't yet heard of anyone being sued over it. (Just to clarify, I do not support or excuse this behaviour).

I believe that the Express editions can be used for paid software.

It is astounding how many people don't read the license. You can legally use VS Community in your company for paid software as long as you have less than 5 employees or make less than one million per year.

See https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

Not if you sell your product to a company that have more than 5 employees or make more than million. Essentially community edition is for students and enthusiasts.

With that much money coming in, you ought to be able to figure it out and buy the appropriate tools.

It is if client gets that money. If you write and sell your software to such clients you can't use community version even if you work alone and get paid less than a million.

Sorry, but you are just cheap if you complain that with 1 million profit you can't afford to pay for VS.

$1 million revenue.

Doesn't really change the point about being cheap, but a business with $1 million in profit is way more fun than a business with $1 million in revenue.

It also counts if your client has such revenue. You could be making little, but you can't use community version if you work with such clients.

If you are working on the client premises ask them to buy a license for you to use. If you are working from your home ... use the Community edition and that's it.

I have my own office and no, it is not "that's it".

Oh, I was talking about companies that are certainly bivger than that.

You can legally use the Community edition for paid software, as long as your company has less than 5 employees and makes less than one million $/year or something like that (read the license carefully).

Check the license and usage here https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

Should have taken the version with MSDN subscription: that one includes VS upgrades, various Windows licenses and even some Azure credits.

Why should I pay for things I don't need? Every other company offers upgrade paths but not Microsoft. Had I known earlier they don't care about small devs I would have bought something else.

> Why should I pay for things I don't need?

You don't have to, but you are saying that you need to upgrade.

> Every other company offers upgrade paths but not Microsoft.

Many companies are moving to a SaaS model. Some, like Adobe and Autodesk, don't sell perpetual licenses at all. For engineering software you've always had to pay maintenance fees.

> Had I known earlier they don't care about small devs I would have bought something else.

Community edition is free for individuals and five licenses for small companies.

I get that you're disappointed that you can't upgrade for a cheaper price, but the perpetual, or standalone, license isn't for people who need upgrades and it says so clearly on the page (which might not have been there when you purschased it though):

"If all you need is the current version of Visual Studio Professional, you can make a one-time standalone license purchase. If you need new versions of Visual Studio Professional, access to Visual Studio Team Services, or have short-term needs then the Visual Studio Professional monthly subscription may be a better option."

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/pricing/

Monthly subscription was not available for me in October.

> but the perpetual, or standalone, license isn't for people who need upgrades

This is endemic to Microsoft. Every other software I bought had discounted upgrade options. They also didn't say "hey we release new version in few months and will abandon this one and you will not be able to upgrade"

Maybe I am spoiled by other companies. Microsoft is certainly not small business friendly. Their support also was pathetic. It took them couple of months to say I can't upgrade.

>They also didn't say "hey we release new version in few months and will abandon this one and you will not be able to upgrade"

But preview builds for 2017 were available as early as march 2016, which comined with the prominent no upgrades included notice, should have told you the same thing.

I didn't see that. Was not aware of 2017 until it has been released.

It's worth noting that there are also Visual Studio subscriptions for anyone who doesn't want/need the full MSDN subscription:

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/pricing/

Everyone keeps patting Microsoft on the back for taking the 'step' into opensource, but all I see is the same product rehashed half a dozen times and massive dependence upon MS's ecosystem for development. There's a reason they can pay hundreds of developers to make these products, because they're still making plenty of money, infact, they're probably making more than ever.

I don't think it is a good idea for Python development to depend on Microsoft products. Eclipse with Pydev is an amazing option for example, and many people swear PyCharm is great.

I am staying away from Microsoft tools. They just want to lock you in and then suck all the money.

Lock you in? To what? I see it as just another option (tool) of the many available tools out there. If it is better than the rest and makes it easier to build solutions, I would consider paying for it.

And when you decide to switch to Linux your VS becomes useless

If you already had cross-platform in mind, then I guess don't consider C#, or any .NET stuffs.

Use something like Java or Python, instead.

Anyway, MS don't force you to use their technologies :p

C# and .Net (both versions) are cross platform. Core being made from the ground up to be cross platform.

C# and .NET is cross platform. VS isn't.

This type of attitude, wanting to use the work of others without paying a dime, is what moved me away from FOSS.

JetBrains IDE's are all better than VS. I've used both sides extensively, and it's a no-brainer. I'm a professional .NET dev, and I am now using Rider instead of VS every day, even though I still have to switch over to VS to publish....

I don't see any downside to writing python in VS if you want to. The code can be edited in anything else later.

How are you going to be locked into an IDE for Python? You can edit the Python code in any other IDE. There is no switching cost. If you put in dependencies or built it on Azure maybe you'd have problems switching, but you could still do it. But if you don't want any sort of lock-in, you can just use the IDE. The anti-Microsoft sentiment on this board is so laughable sometimes.

Main gripe I have with PTVS: Please improve doc rendering, you can use sphinx to create rendered docs as Spyder does very well. It makes coding so much easier for use mortals you have not memorized numpy and every caveat. I'm specifically talking about the very large docs in functions, rendered equations, links and references. Putting all of that in intellisense hoverbox is unusable, make a separate window box.

Otherwise it's pretty good. I actually use both Spyder and PTVS and am unhappy with both. Bad doc rendering in PTVS, no git in Spyder.

Is this Windows only? I downloaded VS 2017 on OS X and the installer does not show the option "Web & Cloud > Python Development" as described in this link[0].

[0]https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/python/install...

Visual Studio for Mac is a lie, mostly. It has nothing to do with Visual Studio, I doubt they share any code. If they do, it's very little and very recent.

VS Mac doesn't support VS extensions. And a lot of other VS things.

They share code, but only at the core. Check out the Visual Studio for Mac thread for more details:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14308754

Basically, it's not a full port, and it's probably not ever going to be, but they're trying to gradually make them more alike in terms of features.

In that regard they had to start somewhere, and as such, .NET was the obvious candidate for a first release.

VS for Mac is a rebranded MonoDevelop IDE (former Xamarin company) http://www.monodevelop.com/

Parts of MonoDevelop, not just a rebrand. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14309709

Does this hold true with the Mac version of visual studio? The site says Windows and Linux.

The Linux support is for remote debugging:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/python/debuggi...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335011

The title is misleading as (from my understanding) no Django-specific features are supported. VS2017 'fully supports' Django as well as Flask as well as any other python library.

Looking at the documentation[1] there is a bit of Django specific support, including IntelliSense in Django templates, debugging for Django templates, and some support for manage.py commands.

[1]https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/python/templat...

I'm pretty sold on PyCharm for my full-blown python IDE needs.

Anyone with experience with both willing to report the pros and cons? Let's assume i already have access to the pro versions of both.

Pycharm burns memory, is slow and has a lot of bugs. But still it is the best options

I see no mention of Mypy for static type checking. I sure hope this is on the road map.

Does this environment extend to the full stack of Redis and Postgres?

I don't think there are any MS obstacles to running instances of Postgresql and Redis at the backend while developing on VS2017.

I am curious is there anyone seriously developing django application in windows?...

Seriously? Mate, you can be sure there are billions of people doing things you could never imagine.

I imagine there are many people who can't choose their deployment and development platform but can choose their language and framework.

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