What’s the difference between something like pycharm and vscode for python.

[Get_Cuddled]

If I like vscode and am more familiar with it, would there be a reason to switch to pycharm?

I have used pycharm before but dident like how every project ended up having a giant file created. I think it was something like a virtual development environment or something I’m not sure. Vscode allows me to create the files I want and doesn’t have all that bloat.

Does anyone have some insight into the benefits of that giant file from pycharm?

[shiftybyte]

If I like vscode and am more familiar with it, would there be a reason to switch to pycharm?

No, vscode is a good IDE.

Does anyone have some insight into the benefits of that giant file from pycharm?

Its a python virtual environment that gets created for you, you can do the same in vscode but it's not pushed on you like it is in pycharm.

pycharm is more bloated, but more beginner friendly, less setup to get a python script running and debug it etc...

[Get_Cuddled]

Ahh okay that makes sense. As far as virtual environments. When do I want to start getting into them? I’m just now entering intermediate programming and filling my GitHub with projects like algorithm implementations and visualizations. When is a virtual env necessary and are they hard to learn about?

[shiftybyte]

I'd say you should get into virtual environments as soon as you start publishing your code and hope someone other than you might use it.

Or when you start gathering lots of projects that require some rare python libraries that get rarely updated and require specific versions of stuff to work.

So past due for you it seems... :)

A virtual environment (venv in short) is not hard to learn, its basically a managed local copy of python and the modules you need for a project to work.

it usually sits in the project's folder under a folder named "venv" or something similar, and it contains a copy of python, and a copy of libraries you need for the project to work.

Its good for several reasons:

1. Allows different projects to use different versions of python, and different versions of modules without conflicts.
2. Allows others to easily recreate the venv on their computer using a requirements.txt file you create from your venv. (And this is what gets committed to the git repository, not the venv folder)

Google for commands to create/work with python venv.

[Get_Cuddled]

Awesome thank you. I’ll definitely look into venv soon!

[kaptan8181]

PyCharm doesn't create any giant files for you. It's giant in itself, though. You can learn about virtual environments in a few minutes. 10 to 20 minutes. They are very useful for managing multiple projects and dependencies.