Workshop

Agenda

Day 1 - Backend with GraphQL

• Discuss Project Goal (Building a simple e-commerce website)
  • Why e-commerce is a good example?
• Setup Apollo Server
  • Hello World Server
• GraphQL Overview (see below)
• Defining Types and Queries
  • Review Scalar Types
  • Create Product Type
  • Create Simple Product Query
  • Create Product Query with Arguments
• Homework Assignment
  • Expand Products to have Categories
    • Products can belong to many Categories
  • Expand Products to have Review
    • Products can have many reviews

GraphQL Overview/Talking points

• Quick Review: What is REST?

  • https://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic-restful-api

• What is GraphQL?

  • https://graphql.org
  • https://www.graphql.com/guides/
  • Just a spec, no single implementation (reference impl https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js)

• What GraphQL isn't

  • A datastore
  • A programming language
  • SQL
  • Coupled to HTTP

• Developer Experiance

  • No need for curl
  • No need for https://swagger.io
  • Playground (https://developer.github.com/v4/explorer, https://github.com/prisma-labs/graphql-playground)
  • Code generators https://graphql-code-generator.com/
  • Editor plugins https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=apollographql.vscode-apollo

• Implementing a GraphQL server

  • https://graphql.org/learn/execution/

• Experimental

  • https://hasura.io/

GraphQL vs REST

GraphQL is RESTful in many ways (client-server, stateless)

Pros:

• Increased client flexibility and control
• Simplified backend API. No need for many custom API routes that serve similar data.
• Standard for documentation
• Developer tools

Cons:

• Less optimal performance.
• Caching. No obvious key. Doesn't fit well with HTTP caching semantics
• Compatibility with HTTP. Typical to not use stadard HTTP semantics (methods, error handling)