I'm curious to know how VS compares to PyCharm in terms of how rapidly the Python environment is able to restart after a code refresh.

It's been my personal experience that PyCharm's Run/Debug configuration is fast to restart in Run mode, but considerably slower in Debug mode, taking 5-10 seconds to restart and attach the debugger. So while I'd like to be able to work with breakpoints and inspection always available, in practice those tools have been harmful to my productivity.

If VS is better or faster in this regard, it might be worth a try.