VS Code Flexible Configurations

[douglowe]

While adapting the Run Configuration example for VS Code I came across this stackoverflow answer on optional inputs for run configurations: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43704747/visual-studio-code-run-python-file-with-arguments

It links to VS Code Variables Reference: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/variables-reference

Following these I created the following configuration file:

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Catchment-analysis: Any",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "args" : [ "${input:dataFile}" ],
            "module": "catchment-analysis",
            "console": "integratedTerminal",
            "justMyCode": True            
        }
    ]
    "inputs": [
        {
            "type": "promptString",
            "id": "dataFile",
            "description": "Chose input file",
            "default": "data/rain_data_2015-12.csv"
        }
    ]
}

This is much more flexible than the current configuration (and could be combined with the current configuration if we want to keep some easy to use configs still). Should we switch to this for our course, or will it be too complicated?