GraphQL.net
- 4. Why GraphQL? • REST and SOAP often provide APIs from the server perspective, not optimized for data and flows from user interfaces • Apps have to usually make multiple expensive REST calls and do data juggling to get the data in the for that they need • Facebook noticed this in their mobile app development around 2012, released the project as an open source project in 2015 • No over or under-fetching of data, client always gets exactly what they asked for • Do everything the client needs in one call, always • https://www.graphql.org is only a schema definition from Facebook, along with a reference implementation for nodejs/react • Open source implementations on GitHub for Python, Go, .NET Core, Scala, etc…
- 6. Why GraphQL instead of OData? • GraphQL is a different approach than OData – OData grew out of the SQL Server team at Microsoft, basically making the database queryable/editably from web clients • It doesn’t however solve the problem of overly complex request flows to get user interface optimized data • …and may make the situation worse since you are married to the data model • Also can offer too much power to clients – they can discover and manipulate the database and data directly, which is usually not a good idea - only makes sense in trusted environments • GraphQL offers more flexibility and simplicity on the client side, probably a big win for client productivity and speed
- 7. Why OData instead of GraphQL? • GraphQL requires a new approach to define and implement GraphQL APIs, with little built-in support in .NET environments • Odata has built in support in several key Microsoft technology stacks, could make it faster to offer internal APIs to clients
- 8. Why maybe not GraphQL? • It is a new API format – be prepared to learn a new schema format, basically replaces Open API definitions with new GraphQL Schemas, and do completely new implementations for services (very different code than a typical ASP.NET Core REST API controller) • .NET GraphQL open source projects are functional, but still relatively young and maybe not production-ready • Doesn’t conform to REST principles that built the web – uses POST for everything
- 9. How’s GraphQL.net? • Good! Works great with ASP.net Core, translation from strongly-typed DTOs in .NET Core to dynamic JSON response payloads works like a charm • https://graphql-dotnet.github.io/ • ORM / DB integrations lacking, maybe should also be avoided, best if used as an API gateway which integrates with backend services
- 10. Demo
- 11. Who’s publicly using GraphQL? • GitHub • Twitter • The New York Times • Yelp • ... • Your neighbor’s dog?
- 12. Do some homework.. • Do the intro exercises, they are fast and fun, and do an excellent job of explaining the intention, platform, and concrete implementation steps • https://www.howtographql.com/
- 13. Takeaway: Always offer an API Gateway to clients – either GraphQL, REST, or both. Don’t make clients integrate directly with backend services or databases.