To get the most out of this book

In order to write and test the code in this book, you will need a Linux, macOS, or Windows machine with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). You will need AWS CLI, Python, and obviously an AWS account. You can use any IDE or code editor you prefer. To write the code for this book, I used JetBrains PyCharm and Visual Studio Code, since they have nice plugins for CloudFormation.

For the CDK and SAM, you will additionally need Docker, Homebrew, and Node package manager (NPM).

All code examples were written on macOS, but they can easily run on a Linux system or WSL.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copy/pasting of code.

Keep in mind that using CloudFormation on AWS is free but you will pay for the resources it creates. In the book, I tried to use the smallest amount of resources possible (such as t2.micro instances), but always pay attention to your AWS account and don't forget to delete the stack and other resources once you are done practicing.