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Low-Code
Development with
Appsmith
Building Internal Tools
and Business Applications
Rahul Sharma
Rajat Arora
Low-Code Development with Appsmith: Building Internal Tools and
Business Applications
Rahul Sharma Rajat Arora
Delhi, Delhi, India Delhi, India
Acknowledgments�����������������������������������������������������������������������������xiii
Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
iii
Table of Contents
Limitations�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16
Appsmith Setup���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������18
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������25
iv
Table of Contents
v
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
vii
Table of Contents
Grafana��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������230
How They Work Together�����������������������������������������������������������������������������230
Installing the Monitoring Stack��������������������������������������������������������������������231
Working with Appsmith Cloud���������������������������������������������������������������������������239
Appsmith Cloud�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������239
Summary����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������243
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������261
viii
About the Authors
Rahul Sharma is an architect with 18 years of
experience developing Java/J2EE and Python
applications. He has worked in a variety of
organizations ranging from enterprises to
startups. He has experience with various
architectures, including monolith, distributed,
big data, and streaming.
ix
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About the Technical Reviewer
Arun Verma has been working in the IT
industry for more than a decade. He is
currently working as a lead engineer and
has experience in creating and executing
innovative software solutions. He is
passionate about utilizing serverless and
microservices-based architecture to enhance
business productivity and end-to-end project
management, from concept through to
development and delivery.
xi
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the many individuals who made this book possible.
Each and every one of them played an important role in its success. I
want to express my sincere appreciation to Divya Modi for entrusting us
with this wonderful opportunity. Her belief in our project provided the
foundation for its eventual success.
I also extend my thanks to Shonmirin P. A. for her unwavering
dedication and editorial expertise. Her guidance and support were
essential in bringing this project to fruition. I am equally grateful to Arun
Verma and Mark Powers for their insightful feedback, which helped us
refine our ideas and effectively convey our message.
Rajat Arora, my co-author, also deserves special recognition for his
vast knowledge and expertise. Our collaborative brainstorming sessions
were instrumental in shaping the final product and conveying a clear and
concise message.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my loving family—my
supportive parents; my wife, Swati; and my children, Rudra and Pranshi—
whose unwavering encouragement and patience were essential sources of
strength and inspiration throughout this project.
Lastly, I would like to thank my friends, whose insights and knowledge
were invaluable in shaping my understanding of the subject matter. Our
discussions and debates served as an important benchmark and helped
ensure the accuracy and relevance of our ideas.
xiii
Introduction
In today’s digital landscape, adopting low-code development platforms
has become crucial for businesses of all sizes. This approach offers a host
of advantages, such as speed, ease of use, and visual interfaces, all while
reducing expenses and increasing flexibility. According to a report by
Forrester, low-code development can accelerate software development up
to ten times faster than the traditional methods. By adopting this approach,
businesses can reap a plethora of benefits, including the ability for individuals
to create new innovations and facilitate better collaboration across teams.
In essence, low-code development platforms offer a practical solution for
organizations looking to stay ahead of the curve in this fast-paced digital era.
Appsmith is one such low-code platform that has seen widespread
popularity in recent years. It is an open-source platform with a strong
community and numerous integrations, offering a variety of tools for
delivering business solutions quickly. This book serves as an introduction
to Appsmith, and will explain its usefulness and explore its features to
establish a foundation for development. Readers will gain hands-on skills
for handling errors, debugging, and troubleshooting with Appsmith.
Additionally, they will learn efficient monitoring and authentication
methods for deploying production-ready systems. Through examples,
realistic scenarios, and explanations of necessary tools, this book will help
readers gain practical skills for building successful low-code apps.
This book is tailored to business analysts and citizen developers with a
technical background who aspire to start developing apps with Appsmith.
It will also be helpful for experienced developers seeking to learn a new
tool or platform, as well as anyone interested in designing technical
solutions with minimal programming. Basic knowledge of object-oriented
programming and JavaScript is assumed.
xv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to
Appsmith
Software development without coding has been the principal of various
application development paradigms. There have been several attempts
to build commercially variable solutions, like computer-aided software
design (CASE) tools, rapid application development (RAD), fourth-
generation programming languages (4GL), etc. All of these solutions
were aimed at solving the issue of organizational productivity. Several
organizations adopted these tools to build products quickly and with
adequate quality.
All the approaches just mentioned have struggled to deliver on their
promises. These tools were expensive, to begin with. Moreover, the
applications were complex to develop and challenging to maintain in the
long run. Organizations were also required to train and retrain employees
to use the tool effectively. The tools were also limited in their capabilities
and often failed to perform as predicted. These challenges led to the tools’
having very little commercial impact.
Over the last decade, businesses have been going through digital
transformations. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated
the need for these transformations. The shortage of skilled developers
and the unsatisfactory quality of software development has formed a
chasm between software demand and supply chain. This gap has forced
companies to reorganize their value chains or even to change their
Low-code Movement
Global market research company Forrester coined the term “low-code
development platform (LCDP)” in their 2014 market trend report. As per
the original report, LCDP is a software development environment that
enables users to develop applications through graphical user interfaces
(GUIs) instead of writing code in a traditional programming language. The
platform also provides capabilities, maybe GUIs, across the entire software
development life cycle (SDLC) spectrum. These capabilities result in faster
go-to-market products and reduced overall cost of maintenance.
Similar to its predecessors, like CASE and RAD tools, low-code
platforms are built on the concepts of abstractions where the user can
directly express business processes and requirements without getting
mired in coding details. While originally intended for applications
involving databases, business processes, content management systems,
and web interfaces, LCDPs have matured enough to develop almost all
applications except for embedded or high-performance applications, such
as games or scientific computing. LCDP is now used to create applications
with the prominent characteristics discussed in the following sections.
Ease of Use
Almost all LCDPs are GUI-based platforms with what-you-see-is-what-
you-get (WYSIWYG) editors. The editor offers several functions, such as
drag-and-drop facilities, pre-built templates, data capabilities like bar
charts and filters, decision engines for building logic, and form builders for
data capture. Domain-specific LCDPs offer domain modeling capabilities
that can be used to generate and maintain their respective use cases.
2
Chapter 1 Introduction to Appsmith
Speed of Delivery
Production rollout can pose several challenges. Applications must be
validated against specifications and deployed on infrastructure with the
required governance. Bypassing these rules can be a severe risk for an
organization’s information technology (IT) setup. Thus, most LCDPs
provide runtime environments that package the application in a specified
format. The low-code runtime allows for immediate testing. Any issues can
be debugged without a long compile-build-deploy cycle. The packaged
app can be delivered to various infrastructures like staging or pre-prod and
production using pre-existing deployment solutions.
Application capacity planning is often outside the scope of LCDPs.
Organizations often adopt deployment practices, like containers and
serverless, to apply scaling measures across the entire ecosystem.
Applications developed with LCDPs are no exception to this governance.
3
Chapter 1 Introduction to Appsmith
Flexibility
Thus, in the absence of a full-fledged programming environment, they must
offer a wide range of integrations. These integrations are often provided
as pre-built components like plugins and widgets, which can capture and
transform data. Some of the pre-built components include the following:
• Multilanguage support
Cloud-First
LCDPs are primarily offered as software as a service (SAAS). They can
be used from the web browser and host the developed applications. The
SAAS model frees users from installing the development platform and
maintaining infrastructure for deployed applications. It also lowers the
entry barrier for new users, who can evaluate such platforms and even
develop and deliver small-scale applications at no cost from the familiar
environment of their web browser.
4
Chapter 1 Introduction to Appsmith
Almost all LCDPs can also integrate and deploy the developed
applications to the organization’s cloud provider. This way, it can enforce
the required checks without needing a DevOps team. The integration can
dramatically reduce the time and effort required to release applications
(and updates) to users.
All the preceding characteristics of LCDPs make them a strategic
solution for digital transformations. They can serve as a medium for
operation excellency via rapid application development and delivery.
However, LCDPs not only provide quick go-to-market solutions but also
bridge the software developement supply-chain gap by empowering non-
programmer business users, also known as citizen developers, for software
development. The platform provides business analysts full autonomy to
solve their unique productivity challenges.
Citizen Developers
Humans have always been the force behind all innovations, and as such,
technology and tools should never be a barrier. Business analysts and
operational teams experience several challenges while servicing their
intended customers. When armed with an LCDP and supported by the
organization and IT, they become citizen developers. It is important
to note that citizen developers may not have any formal training in
programming. Moreover, software development may not be their actual
job responsibility. But these folks are involved with day-to-day operational
challenges and can think of creative ideas to solve them. Consequently,
LCDP delivers the ability to develop, adapt, and deploy software quickly,
a pivotal factor in business competitiveness. LCDP adoption enthusiasm
is additionally fueled by impressive success stories across several
organizations; for example:
5
Chapter 1 Introduction to Appsmith
6
Chapter 1 Introduction to Appsmith
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The author of the New Dispensatory, however, in opposition to
these weighty authorities, and to the concurring testimony of almost
all the chymists, affirms, that this opinion, however plausible, does
not seem to have any just foundation. Nothing arsenical, he says,
has ever been separated from pure antimony. The most violent
antimonial preparations are rendered inactive by means which do
not lessen the poisonous quality of arsenic, and the most inactive
are rendered virulent by operations in which arsenic would either be
dissipated, or its violence abated[27].
This opinion, contradicted by the general voice of mineralogical
and chymical writers, since it is not supported by more convincing
proofs, should not have been published in a book intended for the
use of every pupil in pharmacy; if the prevailing opinion of the
poisonous quality of antimony should be erroneous, it cannot affect
the lives of mankind, but if it is well founded, what words can
express the dangerous tendency of a false doctrine so universally
propagated!
He has not indeed treated this subject with his usual accuracy, for
with Hoffman and other celebrated chymists, he elsewhere
compares antimony to arsenic, as well with respect to its virulence,
as the means of correcting it: Orpiment, says he, from which a
perfect arsenic is obtainable in notable quantity, is when it
participates more largely of sulphur, almost perfectly innocent; and
sulphur, which restrains the power of the antimonial semimetal,
remarkably abates the virulence of this poisonous mineral also[28].
Poppius affirms, that an impure, bituminous and arsenical sulphur,
noxious to the eyes, nose, and lungs, with a blue flame and
arsenical smell, which cannot be endured without danger, is raised
during the calcination or sublimation of antimony[29].
Glauber also directs antimonial cups to be made for the purpose of
communicating an emetic quality to acid liquors, which according to
him produce the same effects as those prepared from orpiment[30];
Boerhaave asserts that antimony seems to be of the same nature
with arsenic[31]; Macquer informs us, that some of the antimonial
ores contain a portion of the same poisonous mineral[32]; and
Cronstedt affirms that all of them are arsenical[33].
Unless therefore those modern chymists, who assert the perfect
innocence of antimony, expect from us that implicit confidence which
their predecessors, who held a very different opinion, rigorously
exacted, it cannot, on their authority, be admitted that it does not
contain arsenic. Wonderful as the works are which they have
atchieved, many secrets of nature have escaped their researches,
which may hereafter be discovered, and many will, undoubtedly,
elude all human investigation.
Nor is more credit due to those who assert that all arsenical
particles are volatilised, and carried off by the force of fire; the
crocus, regulus and glass of antimony containing such subtil virulent
particles as must for ever escape observation, since without losing in
any degree their specific gravity, they impart, almost inexhaustibly,
an emetic power to wine and other liquors, and the operation of
these essences of antimony, as they have been emphatically called,
is similar to those of arsenic.[34]
But although, in opposition to the testimony of the best chymical
writers, it should be granted that there is no arsenic in antimony, it
cannot be affirmed, that it does not contain poison, since by
unfolding its texture by the force or fire, it is rendered highly
virulent; and by the addition of various substances, in the stomach,
it becomes violently emetic[35].
By those who assert the perfect innocence of antimony, and extol
its virtues, orpiment is allowed to be a poisonous substance, and
giving it as a medicine, is declared a practice too dangerous to be
followed[36], yet it is ranked by Hoffman with antimony. It ought to
be remarked, says he, that orpiment was known to the ancient
philosophers and physicians, and universally deemed a poison, and
to this day is sold for arsenic. Yet it does not, when taken internally,
give any molestation, either by vomiting or purging, and may be
given, in a large quantity, to dogs, without hurting them. But if it is
exposed to the fire, then, indeed, it acquires a poisonous quality, as
is also the case with antimony, which, though in its natural crude
state, it is rather a medicine than a poison, yet when melted by fire
it exerts a violent emetic power[37].
Crude white arsenic, the most virulent poison of that tribe, is not
always baneful[38]. It is now more than twenty years since it was
taken in large quantity by four persons, on whom it had no other
effect than, what is usually produced by antimonial preparations, to
excite violent vomiting. All of them were lately, and, I believe, are
still in perfect health. To this I was an eyewitness, and took large
lumps of white arsenic out of the pot in which their victuals were
prepared. It happened at Kelso, in the shire of Roxburgh, and is well
known in that country.
I was a few years afterwards, desired to visit a gentleman in
Northumberland, who had taken white arsenic: it operated in the
same manner, and for several years after this accident he continued
in his usual health.
Thus far does arsenic resemble antimony, but their affinity is still
more strongly asserted by Hoffman. While, says he, the sulphureous
part of antimony is intimately combined with the arsenical or
reguline[39]; it cannot exert its violence. For mineral poisons cannot
act or become noxious, till the poisonous parts are freed from their
union with those which correct their virulence.
But that mineral sulphur has a power of correcting poison, is
clearly proved by that experiment which shews, that arsenic, the
greatest poison, being melted on a slow fire, with an equal portion
of mineral sulphur, is converted into a mass, almost void of
virulence; and if regulus of antimony is fused with an equal portion
of the same sulphur, it immediately loses its drastic power[40].
This theory probably introduced an arsenical medicine into
practice at Berlin, where Hoffman, who was physician to the king of
Prussia, resided. Newman, professor of chymistry and director of the
Royal Elaboratory and Dispensatory in that city, observes, that
chymistry is capable of converting sundry poisons into remedies;
thus the virulent antimonial regulus is changed, by that art, into the
mild diaphoretic antimony; and some have been hence induced to
imagine, that arsenic might also be corrected and rendered safe, and
have even ventured to put so dangerous a speculation in practice. A
preparation of arsenic with nitre has been actually sold at Berlin, and
in other places, under the title of a specific febrifuge[41].
There is, in many instances, a strong analogy not only between
antimony and orpiment, but the more virulent poison of white
arsenic; and those who have been bold enough to use that
poisonous mineral as a medicine, have found, in its preparations, a
more certain and efficacious remedy than in those of antimony. The
illustrious Stahl gives some account of a famous fever powder, which
obtained great reputation in Germany, and was used by most of the
nobility in his neighbourhood. This celebrated chymist does not deny
its great efficacy, but, alarmed by a suspicion of poison in its
composition, earnestly declaims against its use: it was at length
acknowledged to be a preparation of white arsenic[42].
The same fever-powder, or a similar preparation, was used, with
great success, by the German Physicians and Surgeons, in the late
Flanders war. It was also introduced among the English, but the late
Mr. Pringle, Inspector General of the British hospitals in Flanders, on
whose authority this fact is related, alarmed at the danger and
uncertainty of this remedy, ordered all the preparations of it to be
destroyed. This gentleman acknowledged it had proved successful,
but dropsies and visceral obstructions, which sometimes followed the
fevers in which it was given, were, perhaps unjustly, ascribed to its
use.
Some account of an arsenical fever-powder is given by Doctor
Werlhoff, late physician to his Britannic Majesty at Hanover. He
mentions its being recommended from successful experience by
Michael Friccius[43], who had used some drachms of it, and by
Sleuogtius[44], who had given it with safety in fifty cases, but,
notwithstanding these and many other recommendations, he
expressly condemns this dangerous remedy[45].
Lemery also affirms, that many diseases have been cured by
giving four grains of white arsenic in a large quantity of water. It
operates, according to this intelligent chymist, by vomiting, in the
same manner as antimony. But he highly disapproves of using it as
an internal remedy[46].
Poisons having been lately strongly recommended for the cure of
many obstinate diseases, and generally adopted in practice, the
dread of them, wisely implanted in our nature, is in a great measure
banished; and such is the influence of novelty and fashion, and so
much has prejudice prevailed, that one of the most eminent
physicians in Europe has been disgraced for exposing a practice
fraught with danger, and supported by misrepresentation[47].
But though the strong proofs of the poison of antimony, drawn
from its natural history and chymical analysis, should be rejected by
prejudice or scepticism, yet the easy transition of this mineral, by the
simplest processes and slightest accidents, from a salutary medicine
to a deadly poison, has not yet, been seriously denied.
It is found by chymists generally to contain mercury, arsenic, lead,
sulphur, and sometimes copper, silver, and other metals[48]. When it
is melted by fire, or deflagrated with half its weight of nitre, it
becomes a poison. But if antimony, or its regulus, is mixed with an
equal portion of common salt, and calcined with a gentle heat,
stirring it constantly, and afterwards washing it with pure water, it
becomes a gentle diaphoretic.
The mildest preparation of antimony; its white calx, which may be
safely taken to the quantity of some drachms, if melted with an
equal portion of nitre, a little powder of charcoal, and a small
quantity of animal fat, is immediately rendered poisonous.
If antimony is melted with a fourth part of salt of tartar, a salutary
medicine is obtained; but if the same process is performed with two
or three times that quantity of the salt, so nice is the management
of this wonderful mineral, in place of a medicine it becomes a
poison[49]
When antimony is combined with other medicines, as it frequently
is by practical physicians, unless the composition is directed with
chymical skill, it may be so changed, or, in the language of the
chymists, decomposed, as totally to alter its usual qualities.
By marine acids the activity of antimonials is increased, and they
are rendered corrosive, or virulently emetic and purgative; but by
the addition of the nitrous acid this virulence is diminished or
destroyed, and they become mild diaphoretics[50].
Such being the uncertainty and variety in the operation of
antimonial preparations, it cannot be improper, since they are now in
common family use, to lay before the public the objections against
the general application of them, which arise from the accurate
observations of the best chymists, and most experienced physicians;
since it is not improbable, that many who deal them out with a
liberal hand, and with the most charitable and benevolent intentions,
would dread the danger of a drug, which though published as an
infallible remedy, may, without great skill and precision in the
direction of it, in place of a remedy become a poison.
But the ultimate decision of this point must depend on the real
effects of antimonial medicines on the human body, which are
therefore now to be considered.
SECTION IV.
Of the preparations of antimony, and their
medical effects.
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