Python VS code taking too much memory and taking too long to auto complete

Question

I am a beginner learning to program python using VS code so my knowledge about both the VS code and the python extension is limited. I am facing two very annoying problems.

Firstly, when the python extension starts the memory usage of vs code jumps from ~300 mb to 1-1.5 Gbs. If I have any thing else open then everything gets extremely sluggish. This seems to me a bit abnormal. I have tried disabling all other extensions but the memory consumption remains the same. Is there a way (or some settings that I can change to reduce the memory consumption?

Secondly, the intellisense autocomplete takes quite a bit of time (sometimes 5-10 mins) before it starts to kick in. Also it stops working sometimes completely. Any pointers what could be causing that?

PS: I am using VS code version 1.50 (September update) and python anaconda 4.8.3.

Answer 1

At least for the intellisense, you could try changing

 "python.jediEnabled": false

in your settings.json file. This will allow you to use a newer version of the intellisense, but it might need to download first.

But beyond that, I'd suggest using Pycharm instead. It's quite snappy, and it has a free version.

Answer 2

VSCode as a code editor, in addition to the memory space occupied by VSCode itself, it needs to download the corresponding language services and language extensions to support, so it occupies some memory space.

1. For memory, it is recommended that you uninstall unnecessary third-party extensions and duplicate language services. In addition, this is a good habit if we use virtual environments in VSCode. The folder of the virtual environment exists in the project, and the installation package is stored in the project without occupying system resources.

2. For automatic completion, this function is provided by the corresponding language service and extension. please try to reload VSCode and wait for the language service to load before editing the code.

Therefore, you can try to use the extension " Pylance ", which not only provides outstanding language service functions but also provides automatic completion.