Microsoft’s Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) team continues to advance Visual Studio’s role as a multilanguage tool with the release of PTVS’ 2.1 RC edition. PTVS turns Visual Studio into a Python-aware environment that simplifies Python development on Windows while incorporating several powerful features.
Building on what debuted in the 2.1 Beta, this RC adds improved support Anaconda environments, the ability to use Visual Studio’s existing visualizers HTML, XML, and JSON strings, and even addresses a 2-year old request for customizing the brace highlight color.
PTVS supports the Python interpreters installed on your system, whether that is traditional CPython or IronPython. Multiple versions of the interpreter can be installed, so one environment can support Python 2.7.X and 3.4.X without issue. PTVS itself includes an interactive window to allow the direct entry of Python commands, and supports the typical editor features (IntelliSense) along with some more advanced ones: mixed-mode Python/C++ debugging and remote Linux/Mac OS X debugging. The latter allows you to deploy code to a remote server while retaining the ability to edit locally.
The PTVS is available for both paid editions of Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher, and via Visual Studio Express 2013 for Desktop or Web. The plugin is available on the project’s homepage and is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. To get started, combine the plugin with one of the aforementioned Visual Studio packages and your desired Python