Bryan Kenneweg - Building Low-Code Applications with Mendix: Discover best practices and expert techniques to simplify enterprise web development

Discover best practices and expert techniques to simplify enterprise web development

Bryan Kenneweg

Imran Kasam

Micah McMullen

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

Copyright 2021 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author(s), nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Group Product Manager: Ashwin Nair

Publishing Product Manager: Pavan Ramchandani

Senior Editor: Senior Editor

Content Development Editor: Rakhi Patel

Technical Editor: Deepesh Patel

Copy Editor: Safis Editing

Project Coordinator: Kinjal Bari

Proofreader: Safis Editing

Indexer: Pratik Shirodkar

Production Designer: Vijay Kamble

First published: February 2021

Production reference: 1240221

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham

B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-80020-142-2

www.packt.com

To my darling, lovely wife, Ashley, the smartest, funniest best friend I have in this world, who picks me up when I need it, as well as keeping my feet on the ground when I deserve it, thank you for your endless love and motivation. To those who took a chance on me, giving me the opportunity to grow to where I am in life, thank you.

Bryan Kenneweg

To my beautiful and supportive wife, Clarissa, thank you for being my sounding board, my idea consultant, and my hype woman. Your love keeps me striving to be a better person. To my mentor and co-host, Stephen Ledwith, thank you for the opportunities to learn and grow from my mistakes and for constantly guiding me up to the next level. To everyone who forced me to question my current position in life, which gave me the wherewithal to take the risk to move forward, thank you.

Imran Kasam

To my incredible wife, Elizabeth, thank you for your unending support and love. Your joy and passion for life make me a better, happier person every day. Thank you for all that you do! To my boys, thank you for challenging me every day to be a kinder, more patient, and loving father and human. Your ability to provide an unending amount of craziness and pure joy is what keeps me going. Love you!

Micah McMullen

I would be lying if I told you I discovered low-code in 2014. The truth is, low-code discovered me. After spending countless hours in the traditional software development life cycle (SDLC), I knew there had to be a better way. Fortunately, the convergence of three undeniable emerging trends sent me on a journey that is still unraveling. The trends are 1) the cloud, 2) mobile, and 3) low-/no-code. My world has never been the same. Amazon released AWS in 2006, Apple announced the iPhone in 2007, and Mendix announced the first low-code app platform in 2005.

The authors of this book have collectively worked on some of the largest ongoing low-code implementations in the world. From banking to insurance, government to manufacturing, construction to logistics, real estate to manufacturing, and everything in between. Our paths have crossed traversing the globe to assist customers, attend Mendix World, and share best practices. With Building Low-Code Applications with Mendix, you will receive a crash course in modeling high-quality, scalable, and reliable applications. This book covers the essence of what you need to get familiar with low-code and how to use it in practice.

In their presentations and examples, Imran, Micah, and Bryan demonstrate how easy it is to create an account, get familiar with the development tools, understand the core components of low-code, and how to extend solutions via REST integrations. After you complete Imran, Micah, and Bryan's book, you'll understand how to architect a data model, build reusable microflows, and extend your applications with REST services. Mastering this material transforms the recipient of the knowledge from a casually informed to a capable full-stack rapid application developer.

Mastery of these powerful tools will unlock a wide range of cloud-native, device-agnostic applications.

Beyond developing solutions for desktops and smartphones, you'll begin to appreciate how to leverage the Mendix platform to transform the way your organization thinks about IT projects and innovation. The Mendix community is an ever-growing ecosystem, and this is a great book to get you up to speed with low-code in 2021 and beyond.

Michael Guido

Chief Executive Officer, Kinetech

Michael Guido is the CEO of Kinetech, a low-code pioneer and Mendix partner. Michael is passionate about value creation, advising/collaborating with clients, architecting solutions, and leading teams to solve strategic and operational challenges across a range of industries in both the public and private sector. Prior to cofounding Kinetech, Michael worked as a strategy and systems integration consultant at Accenture before becoming the #2 USA business engineering consultant at Mendix. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in systems engineering and a double minor in mathematics and business from the University of Virginia.

Bryan Kenneweg is a Mendix Expert certified developer, as well as a software engineer team lead at eXp Realty. He has worked as a consultant at TimeSeries and as a freelance developer. Bryan enjoys nding solutions for organizations to be more successful, a nice pint, and his family.

Imran Kasam is an independent Mendix architecture consultant who has been working with the platform since 2012. He is a Mendix Expert certified developer and Mendix MVP. Imran likes to help companies mature their engineering teams and software delivery practices. In his spare time, Imran records and produces a podcast with his mentor, called The Architect and The Executive.

Micah McMullen is a software engineer and team lead at eXp Realty. He has been working with Mendix since 2013 and is Expert certified. He enjoys solving complex business requirements with simple solutions. Outside of the office, Micah enjoys hiking, cycling, and spending time with his family.