Microsoft is expanding the Python IntelliSense support from Visual Studio to more development tools, with the launch of Microsoft Python Language Server.
Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) used for developing computer programs, web sites, web applications, web services and more. It is known for the quality of IntelliSense (code analysis and suggestions) across all languages.
The IntelliSense is a tool that provides auto-completions for variables, functions and other symbols in code. This understands the code, analyze it, and helps developers to be more productive.
But its support till now was limited to Visual Studio. The Microsoft Python Language Server will expand its benefits to more tools that are compatible with language server protocol.
Microsoft said that Python Language Server tracks the types of variables in the project during simulation of code execution by leveraging full-program analysis. Typically, this can consume hours of time and unlimited amounts of RAM for complex programs, but Microsoft has optimized its new offering to make it fast and comprehensive for IntelliSense use.
The new offering is now available in July release of Python Extension for Visual Studio Code. Microsoft will release it as a standalone component in next few months.
With the new Python Language Server, the developers working on Python code will be able to see syntax errors while typing the code, and warnings when modules are not found. To fill the missing completions for modules, the developers will be able to use typeshed files.
Further, it will provide improved performance for analyzing workspace, and ability to detect syntax errors on entire workspace rather than just the current file. Microsoft said that it has also improved the startup time and import time.
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“Having a standalone, cross-platform language server means that we can continue to innovate and improve on our IntelliSense experience for Python developers in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code at the same time,” wrote Steve Dower, developer at Microsoft, in a blog post.
