Microsoft drops official support for Python 3.7 in Visual Studio Code
- Reference: 1696853711
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/09/python_37_visual_studio_code/
- Source link:
Python 3.7 reached its end of life in June but remains popular. According to some [2]statistics , many sites use version 3.7 – 17.2 percent of those using Python 3.x by some estimates. Python 3.6, which reached the end of life in 2021, accounts for 28.9 percent and is still the most popular. Python 3.8 sits between the two, accounting for 23.3 percent.
Doubtless mindful of its popularity, Microsoft confirmed there were no plans to strip the code from the Visual Studio Code extension deliberately, saying: "We expect the extension will continue to work unofficially with Python 3.7 for the foreseeable future."
[3]
However, there are no guarantees that something won't go wrong without official support.
[4]
[5]
Python has moved to an annual cadence for end of life. Python 3.8 is due to reach end of life in October 2024, meaning that official support in Microsoft's Visual Studio Code extension will end with the first release of 2025, and so on.
According to Microsoft, the Python extension for Visual Studio works with all actively supported versions of Python. 3.12 is the latest version and, unsurprisingly, has yet to influence the statistics too much. 3.13 is penciled in for release next year.
[6]And now for something completely different: Python 3.12
[7]This profiler chatbot promises to help speed up your Python – we can believe it
[8]Microsoft teases Python scripting in Excel
[9]Sneaky Python package security fixes help no one – except miscreants
Python has long been a popular language with developers. [10]TIOBE listed it at the top of its list of languages for October 2023, ahead of C and C++, while the Stack Overflow developer survey placed the language third, behind HTML and JavaScript, but higher than SQL.
In its [11]2023 survey , Stack Overflow noted that Python placed first for respondents who were either not professional developers or were learning to code.
[12]
As well as dropping official support for Python 3.7, Microsoft also pushed out an update to the debugger extension – now renamed to "Python Debugger" – to include a setting to allow users to only step through their own code or hop into system or third-party library code without having to fiddle with the launch.json settings.
Other improvements include a Lint on change option for the Pylint extension, permitting errors and warnings to be displayed as a user types, and new settings around the Mypy Type Checker to allow a user to specify the reporting scope and whether to use mypy's daemon. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/python/python-in-visual-studio-code-october-2023-release/
[2] https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-python/3
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZSQjpLDfWY8dPEcwdxiv8AAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSQjpLDfWY8dPEcwdxiv8AAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZSQjpLDfWY8dPEcwdxiv8AAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/03/python_312_release/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/30/scalene_ai_advice_python/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/22/python_excel_anaconda/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/python_silent_security_fixes/
[10] https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
[11] https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#technology-most-popular-technologies
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSQjpLDfWY8dPEcwdxiv8AAAARE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Python 3.11 is where you want to be
Python in production? Read the article: it's a programming language for beginners and non-professionals.
Re: Python 3.11 is where you want to be
Ha, tell that to Instagram, or Spotify, or Nextdoor, or Disqus, or BitBucket, or DropBox, or Pinterest, or YouTube. Or to the data science field, or mathematicians, or the Artificial Intelligence crowd.
"Python has moved to an annual cadence for end of life"
Just what's needed (regardless of whether for production or education) -- a language that changes every year 1 . I get the impression that the fundamental purpose of languages (creation of durable applications, and by implication a stable basis for learning programming) has been entirely forgotten in the rush for the new shiny.
1: But python is far from alone in this
.
That is SO StackOverflow
> Stack Overflow developer survey placed the language third, behind HTML and JavaScript, but higher than SQL.
HTML is the top "programming language"? And presumably, all hand-written, not generated from some site layout tool or converted from Markdown by a Python script?
Why does that not sound quite right? What is wrong with picture?
All these questions, and others, will be answered on this week's episode of - SOap.
PS
> In its 2023 survey, Stack Overflow noted that Python placed first for respondents who were either not professional developers or were learning to code.
Clearly the sensible ones who have not yet been on SO long enough. Yet.
Re: That is SO StackOverflow
The main problem I have with those surveys is that they don't flesh out how voluntary the use of a language is (and often not whether it's their primary, secondary or tertiary language). You might spend your ideal day in Django, HTML and CSS but are forced to do some bits in JavaScript to do some specific light lifting in the browser. You may hate JS with a passion but you'd probably still tick JS on that survey and it's weighed at the same level as HTML.
Is it fair to then talk about popularity of a language based on such a survey?
Re: That is SO StackOverflow
I'd me more interested in a survey to find the most popular language that people think in before they end up using the language they work in.
Re: That is SO StackOverflow
I'm more interested in the libraries that people much smarter than me have created for each language. At the moment, for the tasks I have[0], the majority of my coding is in Python.
[0] mostly machine learning and/or computational chemistry currently
Python 3.11 is where you want to be
Our current production is running 3.10 but we're looking forward to moving it to Python 3.11 (3.12 being a little too new) because the speed increases of up to 60% that are reported for Python 3.11 are welcomed by some in the team. We haven't fully completed testing yet to see how that translates for our specific situation but some signs are positive.
So, if you're still somewhere pre 3.11, try to jump straight to 3.11.6.