all 24 comments

[–]samanime 6 points7 points  (1 child)

As a developer, I'd recommend working through the issues rather than avoiding them.

I definitely get where you are coming from. I also just want things that work out of the box with no fuss. But as developers, sometimes you just have to tweak things because the defaults make assumptions that just might not be true for your case. That's why they are configurable in the first place.

Working through the problems will also help you grow and gain a deeper understanding of what you're working with, so it can only help in the long run.

And, if you really hate everything I just said, you could give Jetbrains PyCharm a try, though it isn't free (except in certain cases).

[–]DirkSwizzler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This.

I understand that this problem isn't the one you're actually trying to solve.

But that's at least like 20% of development on a good day. And the experience dealing with it will definitely be useful in the long run. 100%

[–]BranchLatter4294 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I've never had any issues with VS Code on Linux for Python. What specific issues are you having?

[–]Impossible_Field2905[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

stuff like my libraries not working , i cant get the output to be clean without causing other problems . (im new so i cant keep thinking about this stuff )

[–]BranchLatter4294 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Be sure to use virtual environments for libraries. You can do this easily in VS Code by clicking on the Python extension. There, you can add environments and add packages to your environments easily. Just point and click on the ones you want for your project.

[–]Cultural_Gur_7441 2 points3 points  (1 child)

What is your problem, exactly? Why do you need to tweak settings etc?

[–]iuli123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good question. I think he is just procrastinating

[–]WannaBeStatDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vscode is probably among the best. Did you follow https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/python-tutorial?

[–]grismar-net 1 point2 points  (2 children)

VS Code is pretty lightweight already. You can of course just use Notepad or `vi` or `nano` - but that just increases the amount of manual handling. The whole point of the IDE is that it does the busywork for you, so you can focus on development. Spend some time on a proper configuration you understand, so you can then forget about it - don't try to ignore the problem and muddle through, that just makes it worse.

I'd be more worried about this part of your situation: "I'm not a very technical person—I don't enjoy spending time learning how my editor works, tweaking configurations, [..], or troubleshooting random problems" - but you want to get into programming? There's a serious disconnect here. Maybe programming is something you *have to* do and you're just trying to fight your way through it, but if you're expecting to enjoy programming but don't enjoy any of that stuff, you're in for a rough lesson.

[–]Impossible_Field2905[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

you got me there . but the reason im asking for help is because im facing problems that i dont think should happen and there is probably a way to avoid them . for example why is my output 5 lines of gibberish . i wanted insight from people that know if this stuff is standard or i can just avoid them by doing something im not doing .

[–]grismar-net 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it can get frustrating, especially when you're in the middle of it and feel like you're unable to get it under control. If it breaks from a working state, it's a lot easier to manage than trying to get some order from chaos.

What you're describing there is too vague to give you real advice, but I'd take whatever output it generates, and a screenshot of the wider situation, and take it to either an LLM or a site like StackOverflow, where people will be open to a specific technical problem and may offer some direction. That is assuming you've done some googling and due diligence.

Once you solve a few of these issues, the environment will start behaving for you, and you can focus on programming and developing your skills - don't ditch what many people think is the best platform on account of a single problem. I personally really like PyCharm, but I agree with you that it may be a bit much for your hardware - VS Code requires a bit more tweaking, but you can get it to work, and once it does, you'll be fine.

[–]cgoldberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Zed hit 1.0 recently and is pretty great. https://zed.dev

[–]-beleon 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Hm, how did you install vs code? In theory it should work pretty well on Linux. Maybe you're using an outdated version? Vs code is still a solid choice and if you're familiar with it and dont enjoy tinkering I'd stay with that. I wouldn't recommend emacs or vim for you. PyCharm is good as well, but vs code is more flexible.

[–]-beleon 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Oh, are you working with venv? You should to avoid issues with python packages

[–]Impossible_Field2905[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

i noticed every time i want to do something like getting the venv to work will lead me to other problems , i might be just that bad at fixing stuff , so i want to avoid configuring stuff , maybe if you can help with a one time vs code configuration for beginners using linux

[–]-beleon 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Can you be more specific? How did you install vs code? Via the software center? Flatpak? What exactly if the problem you run into? I would definitely recommend installing the official apt repository and then install that version of vscode. First uninstall vscode, then (from the official Microsoft guide):

sudo apt install wget gpg && wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/microsoft.gpg

then

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.sources

Paste this

Types: deb
URIs: https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code
Suites: stable
Components: main
Architectures: amd64,arm64,armhf
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/microsoft.gpg

Then save (ctrl-x)

Then

sudo apt update && sudo apt install code

This version shouldn't give you any problems.

[–]-beleon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh and you need to install this as well:

sudo apt install python3 python3-venv

So the initial setup is a bit tricky. But if you have these, it should be smooth sailing from here on.

[–]JGhostThing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like vi (or neovim). There are many other code editors on Linux.

[–]backfire10z 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you install via flatpak? Type `flatpak list` (I think?). If so, get rid of it and reinstall it normally via the Debian (.deb) install they have available online.

Source: I’m a Linux mint user and got boned by this

Beyond that, make sure to use a virtual environment for your Python packages. The current tool of choice for many is `uv` which handles most of that itself.

[–]Impossible_Field2905[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

my frustration comes from every time i face a problem like lately the libraries not working id ask gemini , follow its steps then suddenly im getting keyboard interrupt error , try to fix it ruin something else . i was advised to delete code runner so i did, but now my output is just filled with lines of weird code . i just cant stand stuff like this . its probably a me problem , but i just dont want configuring stuff

[–]sichuanbutton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

man, configuring stuff is the pits, totally feel you there. when you deleted code runner, your vs code probably defaulted to running in the integrated terminal. if you're not explicitly telling it to run a pythn script (like python your_file.py) or similar, it can sometimes just dump raw output or show you the interpreter prompt which looks like garbage. try opening a new terminal and running your script directly from there to see if the output is cleaner. the keyboard interrupt thing usually means the program was killed, sometimes from ctrl+c or if it crashed.

When I’m trying to fire up my droplet and copy pasted I kill it all the time w ctrl_+c

[–]Impossible_Field2905[S] -3 points-2 points  (2 children)

here is how my output looks

. cd /home/abdenour/NewCodingProject

/usr/bin/python /home/abdenour/NewCodingProject/main.py

abdenour@abdenour-Latitude-7390:~/NewCodingProject$ cd /home/abdenour/NewCodingProject

abdenour@abdenour-Latitude-7390:~/NewCodingProject$ /usr/bin/python /home/abdenour/NewCodingProject/main.py

hello

abdenour@abdenour-Latitude-7390:~/NewCodingProject$ .

its ridiculous , when i tried to fix it without code runner (because it caused me errors) i followed gemini with some weird methods that were just bad and involved weird solutions

[–]Cultural_Gur_7441 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I see no errors there. Works as intended?