This workshop uses Python 3 which you should install based on the instructions for your system. We will create a Django project inside of a virtual environment.
To get started create a virtual environment with Python and activate it:
> python -m venv time_api_venv
The virtual environment should have activated automatically.
To activate it again in the future you need to source the activate script.
> source time_api_venv/bin/activate
Now, install the latest version of Django with pip.
(time_api_venv)> pip install -U django
Once you have Django installed it’s time to start our project. We’ll be building a simple API for checking the current time. Let’s call the project “time_api”.
(time_api_venv)> django-admin startproject time_api
It’s good practice at this point to add a .gitignore file.
Let’s make sure that we don’t commit our virtual environment, our database or any compiled Python files.
Add this to a file called .gitignore in the root of your Django project:
time_api_venv
db.sqlite3
*.pyc
__pycache__
Initialise your git repository, and add our project files. It’s handy to commit regularly so that you can step back through your work.
(time_api_venv)> git init
(time_api_venv)> git add .
(time_api_venv)> git commit -m "⚡️ Initial commit to our Time API"
Great. You can now move on the to the next step where we will walk through the creation of our Time API.