A talk given by Marcin Gebala during the first meetup of GraphQL Wroclaw on 29 January 2019. GraphQL became a mature ecosystem that answers the needs of modern web apps, and one of the most exciting trends in programming. The presentation talks about benefits from migrating to GraphQL (both backend and frontend), and the most interesting tools making frontend development easier and more pleasant.

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Why you should migrate to
GraphQL in 2019
Marcin Gębala

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About me
■ Python developer @ Mirumee Software
■ Lead developer and open-source community
maintainer @ Saleor e-commerce platform
■ 1 year experience with GraphQL - building a GraphQL
API for Saleor
@maarcingebala
github.com/maarcingebala

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Agenda
■ GraphQL - introduction & core concepts
■ Capabilities of GraphQL ecosystem
■ Problems

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GraphQL - introduction

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A data query language and specification
developed internally by Facebook in 2012 before
being publicly open sourced in 2015. It provides
an alternative to REST-based architectures
with the purpose of increasing developer
productivity and minimizing amounts of data
transferred
Source: https://gql.foundation/
GraphQL

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■ Client defines what data to fetch
■ Queries, mutations, subscriptions
■ POST, single endpoint, single request
■ Strong typing
■ Introspection
GraphQL - core concepts

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C# / .NET
Clojure
Elixir
Erlang
Go
Groovy
Java
JavaScript
PHP
Python
Scala
Ruby
C# / .NET
Clojurescript
Go
Java / Android
JavaScript
Swift / Objective-C iOS
Python
Server implementations Client implementations
Source: https://graphql.org/code/

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Companies using GraphQL
Source: Geoff Schmidt’s talk from GraphQL Summit 2018 (https://youtu.be/IjJkAL4RWyQ)

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Demo - Github v4 API

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Capabilities of GraphQL ecosystem

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Entire API as a single file
■ Versioning
■ Easy to find usages of
particular types
■ Clear contract between
backend and frontend
schema.graphql

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Flexible resolvers
Field resolvers allow easily implement fetching data from different
sources: memory, disk, network, microservices.
REST API Database
Search
engine
S3
GraphQL
Web Mobile

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Simpler state management
■ API is your application state
■ No Redux or MobX stores
■ apollo-link-state - local state management with
GraphQL
■ React Context API

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Apollo Client

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■ Apollo GraphQL Extension
for VSCode
■ GraphiQL / Playground
experience in the editor
■ Performance statistics from
Apollo Engine
IDE integrations
Apollo GraphQL plugin running in VSCode

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Generating static types
GraphQL type from
schema definition
Query defined by a frontend
view
Typescript type used in
frontend code
Instantly reflect backend changes in the frontend code.
Support: Swift, Typescript, Flow, Scala

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■ Tracks API changes,
deprecated fields
■ Performance metrics
■ List of connected clients
Apollo Engine

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■ Best practices are still emerging
■ Differences between frameworks
■ Caching
Problems

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Summary

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■ Modern and battle-tested stack
■ Frontend productivity
■ Backend flexibility
■ Happy developers :)
So what are the benefits of migrating to GraphQL?

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■ Apollo Tutorial
■ Netflix’s migration case study
■ Shopify’s GraphQL design tutorial
■ Anemic mutations design
Resources

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THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?