Creating your first Python virtual environment

Now that we have installed the Python toolset, let's take it for a test drive by creating a Python project that can interact with the AWS cloud platform. First, let's create a directory for the project and name it ObjectDetectionDemo. Within this directory, we initialize a Python 3 virtual environment with pipenv, as follows:

$ mkdir ObjectDetectionDemo
$ cd ObjectDetectionDemo
$ pipenv --three

After these commands, the ObjectDetectionDemo directory will contain a Pipfile. The Pipfile is a pipenv configuration file that specifies this project's Python packages and their dependencies.

Next, we specify and install the AWS Python SDK, Boto, for the ObjectDetectionDemo project:

$ pipenv install boto3

It might take a few minutes for Pipenv to synchronize with the Python package index and to install the boto3 package, along with its dependencies. After the installation, your Pipefile should have the following contents:

[[source]]
url = "https://pypi.org/simple"
verify_ssl = true
name = "pypi"

[packages]
"boto3" = "*"

[requires]
python_version = "3.7"

As you can see here, boto3 has an entry under the packages section. Currently, the version number is listed as *, which means, use the latest version. You can replace * with a specific version for any of the packages for your project if necessary.