Learning Python on AWS

I’ve been working in tech for just over 15 years now. I’ve relied on Java as my go-to tool for quick PoCs, and its carried well my thus far. But I felt that I was missing out on better tools for web development, so about 5 years ago I learnt some basics of Ruby on Rails. However I didn’t find a useful way to use it in my day-to-day work, so I pretty much dropped it. However, now that I spend most of my time on AWS, I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to learn python, for a few reasons:

• AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) is really powerfull
• Python is supported in Lambda
• For Machine Learning, you can use Python natively in Amazon SageMaker
• For ETL, you can use Python with AWS Glue
• Amazon Transcribe Streaming SDK
• Cloud9 supports Python
• The AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) supports python
• AWS Step Functions Data Science SDK for Python
• Chalice is a framework for writing serverless apps in python
• But the biggest reason was the AWS CDK. With the CDK, this simple construct

lbecs = aws_ecs_patterns.ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService(self, 'ECS_Fargate',             memory_limit_mib = 1024,            cpu = 512,            desired_count = 1,            task_image_options = ghost_task_image,        )

will result in building a new VPC, ECS Fargate cluster, security groups and load balancer, with your container deployed and working. Need I say more!

Resources

This is what I used to learn python on AWS:

1. Setup VScode, Python, venv: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54106071/how-to-setup-virtual-environment-for-python-in-vs-code and https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/environments
2. Awesome for beginners to programming: Learn Python - Full Course for Beginners [Tutorial] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfscVS0vtbw&ab_channel=freeCodeCamp.org
3. Python for Java programmers: https://developers.google.com/edu/python
4. Learn Python on AWS: https://learn-to-code.workshop.aws/loops/lab_6/step-2.html
5. https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/hands-on/build-modern-app-fargate-lambda-dynamodb-python/
6. https://cdkworkshop.com/30-python
7. https://ecsworkshop.com/microservices/platform/build_environment/#build-the-environments-1
8. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/latest/guide/ecs_example.html
9. https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-cdk-examples
10. Code Samples for Python