Why GraphQL will become the new standard for accessing external data in your React Native app. I will show how using GraphQL instead of REST services the development process becomes even more declarative as GraphQL will take away the (imperative) hassle of tying data from multiple endpoints together. This will increase the level of complexity in React Native development, while also increasing the performance of the application.

1. GraphQL Will Do To REST
What JSON Did To XML
React Native EU @ Wroclaw, Poland
05/09/2018

2. What is this about?

4. Who Am I?

5. Roy Derks
@gethackteam
#javascriptEverywhere
#reactjs #ReactNative

6. Who is this for?

7. Who is this for?
BACKEND

8. What is wrong with REST?

9. REST has multiple
endpoints that return fixed
data structures

10. Let’s build an UI that fetches
data from a REST API

11. What is wrong with REST?
#1 Multiple Endpoints
GET /movie/:movieId
GET /movie/:movieId/rating
GET /movie/:movieId/cast

13. Why not create one endpoint
with all information?

14. Oops..
We used a nested layout design
for our REST API, but a new problem
arises…

15. What is wrong with
REST?
#2 Over-fetching
Bandwith?
Memory?

16. Why not specify which
parameters you want to
receive in your request?

17. Great! Until..
We make UI changes and new
developers join our project

18. What is wrong with REST?
#3 Documenting
Versioning?
Required fields?
Debugging?

19. How does GraphQL
solve this?

20. GraphQL has a single
endpoint that returns flexible
data structures

21. How does GraphQL solve this?
#1 Single Endpoint
GET /graphql?query={…}

23. How does GraphQL solve this?
#2 Flexible Data Structure
We no longer need to
display the cast
GET /graphql?query={…}

25. How does GraphQL
do this?

26. How does GraphQL solve
this?
#3 Schema Language
Strong typed schemas
Hierarchical

28. Which leads to great
documentation

30. To summarise..

31. GraphQL has a single endpoint that
returns flexible data structures
REST has multiple endpoints that
return fixed data structures

32. What else has
GraphQL to offer?

33. Rich Developer community
Modern Tooling
Industry adoption
Backwards compatible

34. Will REST be send to the
graveyard by GraphQL?

35. Want to learn more?
@gethackteam #javascriptEverywhere
https://graphql.org
https://howtographql.com/