The basic installation of Visual Studio Code is simple enough.
Python is setup with Anaconda. This seems to open up a lot of options.
Tensorflow also was an easy install.
The Python in Visual Studio Code page gives a pithy introduction to the environment, though generating a launch.json file with the red-dotted ‘Settings’ button produced an unsuccessful result for debugging. Using Debug -> Open Configurations worked.
My starting resource for Tensor Flow is the O’Reilly ‘TensorFlow for Deep Learning’. And off we go.