Short Message Service (SMS) text messages are ubiquitous for time-sensitive communication. They’re also easy to send at scale by combining a Django web application with an application programming interface (API).

In this tutorial, we will build a straightforward Django project with SMS capability that transmits messages to multiple recipients.

If you want to go further in learning either Python or the Twilio SMS API, check out the amazing TwilioQuest training game.

Required Project Dependencies

Python 3 is required for this tutorial because Python 2 will no longer be supported after December 31, 2019. We’ll use Python 3.8 to build this tutorial.

We will also use the following application dependencies in our application:

• Django web framework, version 2.2.x
• pip and virtualenv
• The Twilio Python helper library, version 6.32.0 or greater
• A free Twilio account. Sign up to get an account so you can use the Twilio APIs

If …

Sending and receiving SMS is easy with the Twilio API, but what if you want to send regularly-scheduled reminders from your Laravel web applications? In this tutorial, we'll combine Laravel, Twilio Programmable SMS and cron to send daily reminders that are stored in a Laravel data model.

Project Dependencies

We'll need the following dependencies to complete this tutorial:

• PHP version 7+
• Composer installed globally
• Your Twilio credentials, which you can sign up for an account for free

We can start building our project once you have PHP 7 and Composer installed. We'll sign up for a Twilio account at the appropriate step in the tutorial.

All of the code for the project can be found within this Git repository on GitHub.

Create a Laravel Project with Composer and the Twilio Helper Library

In your terminal, start a new Laravel project named reminder-app using the following command:

Python programmers love to help – the community publishes detailed tutorials for their fellow developers every day. Over the last month, we’ve been collecting some of those posts we found most helpful.

Each tutorial is easy enough for beginner-level programmers to follow. More experienced developers should be able to breeze through the code while building a useful project, or use them as convenient refreshers.

Whichever bucket you belong to, enjoy the posts!

Exercising, or Slacking? Build a Python Bot for Either

The term "bot" feels so 2017 in this community. However, they are still a great way to learn how to build Python applications.

• Create Your Own Personal Training Exercise Bot with Python, Zappa, AWS and Twilio SMS by Matthew Vielkind via Twilio
• Build a Slack Bot that Mimics Your Colleagues by Casey Kinsey via Lofty Labs

Use Bokeh to Visualize All the Data!

Bokeh, the wonderful Python visualization library …

WhatsApp is a global messaging service that helps billions of people communicate with each other. Applications can now also programmatically interact with people on the service using the Twilio Messaging API and Twilio's Java Helper Library. Let's learn how to quickly send messages to people from a new or existing Java application.

Installing Dependencies

Our local development environment needs the following dependencies to properly send WhatsApp messages from Java.

• Java SE version 7 or higher
• A free Twilio account with an activated WhatsApp Sandbox
• The Twilio Java Helper Library

First, install Java on your development machine if you do not already have it. You can also read this detailed tutorial on setting up your Java development environment if you are having trouble.

Next, log into your existing Twilio account or sign up for a new free Twilio account.

Take note of your Account SID and Auth Token when …

WhatsApp is an over-the-top (OTT) messaging service widely used throughout the world. In this tutorial, we will learn how to quickly send WhatsApp messages through the Twilio Messaging API with reusable code that can be added to any Python application.

Development Environment Setup

We need the following dependencies installed on our local development environment to send WhatsApp messages.

• Python version 2 or 3
• A free Twilio account with an activated WhatsApp Sandbox
• The Twilio Python Helper Library

If you do not have Python already installed on your machine, go to the Python downloads page and install the latest version now.

Next, log into your existing Twilio account or sign up for a new free Twilio account.

After you log into the Twilio Console, take note of your Account SID and Auth Token. The Account SID is a unique identifier for your account while the Auth Token is …

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda is a usage-based service that can run arbitrary Python 3.6 code in response to developer-defined events. For example, if a new JPEG file is uploaded to AWS S3 then AWS Lambda can execute Python code to respond to resize the image on S3.

Let’s learn how to use AWS Lambda with a manual test event trigger to send outbound text messages via a Python Lambda function that calls the Twilio SMS REST API.

Getting Started with AWS Lambda

Sign up for a new Amazon Web Services account, which provides a free tier for new users, or sign into your existing AWS account.

After you sign up go to the main Console page that looks like the following screen.

As shown in the screenshot, use the search box with the text “lambda” to find Lambda on the list of services. Click on Lambda …

Java web applications can easily dial and receive phone calls by combining the Spark web framework with the Twilio Voice API. Our example phone calls will say a snippet of text then play an MP3 file, but they can easily be modified to provide other useful actions like gathering user input from the number pad or creating conference calls.

Our Project Tools

Our Spark web app will use the Java 8 JDK and Apache Maven so make sure you have those tools installed. If you need to get Java 8 and Apache Maven installed on your Windows machine, check out this tutorial (you can skip over the GWT bits). We will also need the following tools throughout this walkthrough:

• Spark web framework for responding to HTTP requests
• Ngrok to create a localhost tunnel to our local development environment
• A free Twilio account to use Twilio Voice
• Twilio Java …

Do you want to get started developing Java web applications that use Google Web Toolkit (GWT)? This guide walks through how to install a Windows 10 development environment so you can start building your projects.

Tools We’ll Need

We’ll need to install and configure several tools for our development environment:

• Java 8 Java Development Kit (JDK)
• Apache Maven build and configuration tool
• Google Web Toolkit (GWT) web framework

Let’s get started by downloading and installing version 8 of the Java JDK.

Java 8 JDK

Head over to the Java 8 JDK downloads page in your web browser. Read and accept the licensing agreement then proceed with the download for the latest release of the Windows x64 Java SE Development Kit.

When the download completes, run the executable. Allow the installer to make changes to your system.
Move through the installer and when you reach the following screen press the …

A localhost tunnel comes in handy when you want to share an application running in your local development environment via a publicly-accessible URL. In this quick 2 minute video we will learn how the localhost tunneling tool Ngrok works then download and run it on Mac OS X:

Now you’re ready to share your local in-progress applications with others before you perform a full-blown deployment.

Links & More Resources

We used a couple of resources in the above video:

• Ngrok, the localhost tunneling tool by Alan Shreve
• Python 2.7 SimpleHTTPServer built into stdlib (Python 3 replaces SimpleHTTPServer with http.server)

Learn more about how to configure and use Ngrok with these tutorials:

• Test Your Webhooks Locally with Ngrok
• 6 awesome reasons to use ngrok when testing locally
• How to set up your Python and Flask development environment, including Ngrok

Now that you have Ngrok running on your Mac, here …