Building Low-Code Applications with Mendix: Enterprise web development made easy with Mendix and the power of low-code development: Enterprise web and ... Mendix and the power of no-code development

332 Pages·2021·6.765 MB·English

by  Bryan Kenneweg, Imran Kasam, Micah McMullen

Building Low-Code
Applications with
Mendix
Discover best practices and expert techniques to
simplify enterprise web development
Bryan Kenneweg
Imran Kasam
Micah McMullen
BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI
Building Low-Code Applications with Mendix
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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
Foreword
A Journey in
Low-Code
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.
Contributors
About the authors
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 finding 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.
About the reviewer
After joining Mendix in 2010 in the Mendix project department, Rene van Hofwegen
worked as a consultant on several Mendix projects. Rene shifted his focus to Mendix
Academy at the start of 2011, starting with hosting and developing Mendix training
courses, which extended toward the overall management of Mendix Academy.
In 2017, Rene left Mendix, leaving behind the Mendix training and certification program,
as it still exists. After leaving Mendix, Rene kept contributing to the Mendix community
as a Mendix trainer and coaching Mendix developers in Europe. In 2018, he was
appointed Mendix MVP and received the Mendix Trainer certification.
In 2021, Rene founded the Low-Code Academy. He collaborates with Mendix, Mendix
Academy, and several Mendix partners to provide the best low-code training and
coaching.

Table of Contents
Preface
Section 1:
The Basics
1
Introducing Mendix
What is low-code? 4 Summary 9
What is Mendix? 7 Knowledge check 9
2
Getting to Know the Mendix Platform
Creating an account 12 Mendix App Store 19
Home page overview and Summary 20
breakdown 14 Chapter 1 knowledge
Apps, People, and Community 15 check answers 20
Mendix Forum and Docs 17 Chapter 2 knowledge check 20
3
Getting to Know Mendix Studio
What is Mendix Studio? 23 Why would you use Mendix
Studio? 29
Using Mendix Studio 24
Summary 29
A breakdown of the UI
and features 25