In this talk, we shared some of our highlights of the GraphQL Europe conference. You can see the full coverage of the conference here: https://www.graph.cool/talks/

1. GraphQL Europe Recap
Philipp Sporrer
@PhilippSpo
Frontend Engineer @commercetools

2. GraphQL Europe was
great 🎊

3. "REST is a set of architecture
constraints, not a protocol"

4. REST Architecture
Constraints
1. Client Server
2. Stateless
3. Cacheable
4. Layered System
5. Uniform Interface
A. Identification of resources
B. Manipulation of resources through representations
C. Self-descriptive messages
D. Hypermedia as the engine of application state

5. GraphQL ticks all the boxes
Client Server
Stateless
Cacheable
Layered System
Uniform Interface
A. Identification of resources
Manipulation of resources through representations
Self-descriptive messages
B. Hypermedia as the engine of application state
(nearly 😅)

6. GraphQL is a
specification

7. "GraphQL is a standardization of
things people were already doing”
- Jonas Helfer

8. GraphQL is incrementally
adoptable

9. “There is not enough
guidance"

10. Apollo Launchpad

11. Persisted Queries ✨

12. Static Queries
Dynamic Static

13. Whitelisted Queries
• Server only accept known queries
• Use to restrict which queries can be made
• The idea here is more about security, less about
performance

14. Compiled Queries
• Do some optimisations in build step
• E.g. eliminating redundant fields
• optimised query gets sent to server

15. Persisted Queries
• Compile static queries and save on server
• only send the ID instead of the whole query string
• Supported by Apollo Client and Relay Modern
Query Store
GraphQL Server
#111
#110
id query
#110 …
… …

16. Schema-driven development
• Get representatives from frontend and backend in a
room
• Use GraphQL SDL as discussion basis
• Create and discuss schema together
• Then both parties go and write code according to
the schema

17. GraphQL helps teams solve
communication problems

18. “The major problems of our work
are not so much technological as
sociological in nature”
- Peopleware

19. Permissions are handled
differently
• Facebook has permissions baked into the
underlying data layer, so GraphQL is agnostic of
permissions
• GitHub, Xing and Shopify have the logic in GraphQL
mostly out of legacy REST API code reasons

20. "Errors are not a solved
problem yet"

21. Why does GraphQL have a
spec?
• Describes the behaviour that we expect from all
implementations
• Enables implementations across languages
• Client interoperability
• Stable base

22. GraphQL Development
Philosophy
• backwards compatibility
• performance is a feature
• favour no change
• Prove it first
• slow and steady pace (new versions twice a year, fall
and spring)

23. GraphQL - Spring 2017
• new validation rules
• error key paths
• schema definition language
• subscriptions

24. Schema definition language
type Person {
name: String
age: Int
picture: Url
}

25. Subscriptions
HowToGraphql.com Using GraphQL Subscriptions with Apollo

26. GraphQL working
group

27. Where to learn GraphQL
• http://graphql.org/learn
• https://www.graph.cool/talks/ (Find all talks there 👀)
• http://www.graphql.com/
• https://www.howtographql.com/

28. Thank you! Questions?