I remember reading about GraphQL sometime last year and it sounded cool but I haven’t had time to dive into a new topic like this in a while. Fast forward to today and I’ve been working on learning more modern web development, particularly Angular, some Node, Firebase, and TypeScript. On occasion, I try to watch or listen to AngularAir and this past week they were discussing GraphQL which had me pretty excited. Bonnie Brennan walks through the very basics of implementing GraphQL using Apollo. The flexibility of GraphQL is amazing. You can use a variety of data sources on the back end and have it all be accessed via GraphQL. Some main takeaway points I took from this is:
- You can have a GraphQL endpoint that can return just the fields you need from your data, not the entire object graph
- You can combine various data sources on the back end and deliver them using your GraphQL endpoint
- You can push data from the server to the client
- The business logic can sit on the server and reduce your bundle sizes in your JS front-end app
Check out the episode below.
I went down a rabbit hole after listening (and then watching) this episode of ngAir. I stumbled upon this other great video from Scott from LevelUpTuts/Syntax Podcast.
I’ll definitely be diving deeper into this very soon. I’m pretty sure I’ll implement on my side project.