Thanks for the kind words! I'm currently thinking about a model of notebooks / interactive programming where the default assumption is that you're using it as

Thanks for the kind words! I'm currently thinking about a model of notebooks / interactive programming where the default assumption is that you're using it as a scratchpad, i.e., you won't need to explicitly name the file in order to get the benefits of auto-save, but yet the file won't pollute your filesystem / project namespace until you choose to "keep" it. Hopefully this helps reduce the friction in the exploratory programming realm; my goal is to eliminate the "ConsoleApplicationX" directories (I'm a VS guy from way back so ...) and I think it helps with your scenario 1) above. The Python VS Code extension team is well aware of the gaps that you list as well, and are working hard to narrow them with each release. We are definitely serious about improving the Python experience in VS Code. How times have changed :) Thanks for the support and encouragement. And as always, if you find issues that aren't already in our github, feel free to add some more and keep the feedback coming!