if [ -f $(brew --prefix)/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh ]; then
    . $(brew --prefix)/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh;
    function mkvirtualenvhere() { mkvirtualenv "$@" "${PWD##*/}" ; setvirtualenvproject; }
    function workonthis() { workon "${PWD##*/}" ; }
fi

This is for OS X and homebrew. You’ll need something slightly different for your flavor of Linux.

mkvirtualenvhere creates a new virtualenv with the same name as the current directory, and I use it like this:

$ cd ~/src
$ git clone https://github.com/jwhitlock/drf-cached-instances.git
$ cd drf-cached-instances
$ mkvirtualenvhere
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

The virtualenv is called “drf-cached-instances”, and I can start work two ways. The standard way is:

$ workon drf-cached-instances

This will activate the virtualenv and change the current directory to ~/src/drf-cached-instances, because of the setvirtualenvproject call.

The second way is:

$ cd ~/src/drf-cached-instances
$ workonthis

This activates the virtualenv that shares the name of the current directory. Often, I think I am just looking at a project, using ack to explore the code, but then switch to running the project so I can experiment in an interactive prompt.

Another tool to help this workflow is GitHub’s hub, which can be faster than git for working with GitHub hosted projects.  I often use it for code review work, but forget to use it when cloning a new project.