Python (http://python.org/download/) is a popular programming language that is reliable, flexible, easy to learn, free to use, and supported by a strong developer community and many free libraries. Python works on all major operating systems and is useful for many purposes including web applications, web services, desktop apps, scripting, and scientific computing. Thus it's used by many universities, scientists, casual developers, and professional developers alike.

To learn more about the language, start with Python for Beginners (python.org).

The Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS), is a free, open-source extension for Visual Studio that provides a powerful Python development experience, including a project system and templates, rich editing and IntelliSense, full-featured debugging, and a variety of other tools.

The extension provides the following features:

• Support for multiple interpreters: various versions of CPython, IronPython, and IPython

• A project system that implicitly picks up a folder structure of Python code and also allows explicit control so you can identify app code, test code, web pages, JavaScript, build scripts, and so on.

• Project templates for console, web, Azure, data science, and other types of projects.

• Rich editing and code comprehension features including syntax coloring, auto-complete across all your code and libraries, signature help, class view, Go to Definition, Find All References, refactoring, and more.

• An Interactive (REPL) Window

• Rich debugging without a Visual Studio project, the ability to an existing executable, mixed-mode debugging, remote debugging to Windows/Linux/Mac, and debugging within the Interactive Window.

• IPython with data visualizations.

• Support for IronPython and .NET/WPF.

• Profiling tools.

• Testing tools.

• The Azure SDK for Python

The following resources will help you get started:

• Install Python Tools for Visual Studio.
• Installation guide
• Getting started and deep dive short videos
• Installation and features demo (27 min)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNNAOypc6Ek)
• Documentation
• Source code

The Azure SDK for Python, which supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, makes it easy to consume and manage Microsoft Azure Services. Refer to the following resources for details:

• To install the SDK, use the Python Package Index or follow Install Python and the SDK in the Azure documentation.
• Azure SDK for Python Developer Center has lots of help from installation to documentation with tutorials. Some highlights follow:
• How-to Guides:
  • Storage Blob
  • Storage Queue
  • Storage Table
  • Service Bus Queues - Service Bus Topics/Subscriptions
  • Service Management
• The SDK's GitHub repository has unit tests that are also a good source of information on APIs.

In addition to all the Python data-scientist libraries, the Python Tools for Visual Studio support IPython and IPython Notebooks, which can be hosted in Azure.

We recommend obtaining IPython and scientific computing libraries (matplotlib, scipy, numpy, etc.) from University of California, Irvine.

Getting Started with PTVS: Setting up Visual Studio Getting Started with PTVS: Start Coding (Projects) Getting Started with PTVS: Editing Code Getting Started with PTVS: Debugging Getting Started with PTVS: Interactive Python Getting Started with PTVS: Building a Website in Azure