historY
RPC / WEB API's
CORBA / DCOM
XML-RPC
SOAP
REST
inherent complexity
verbose, xsd schemas,
http, overhead
crud, http verbs, <json />
Which is better?
... it depends! 😎
REST
- Client-Server
- XML / JSON
- Resource-oriented
- Stateless
- HTTP uniformity (verbs & conventions)
- Hypermedia (links & relationships)
Roy Fielding dissertation: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm
representational state transfer
ful
ish
GraphQL
DECLARATIVE API query language
Ask for what you need, get exactly that
DECLARATIVE API query language
Mutate (create, update, delete) your data
Schema type system
GraphQL APIs are organized in terms of types and fields, not endpoints
DATABASE AGNOSTIC
Use any persistence layer and define your own data resolvers
developer experience & tools
GraphQL
R.I.P. REST?
🙈
REST
- Multiple requests
- Any HTTP Client + Docs
- Format? Included relationships / links?
- Filter / Sort by query params
- Easy pagination
GRAPHQL
- Single request
- Built-in tools (GraphiQL)
- Free-form JSON representation
- Declarative queries / mutations
- Good luck!
good ol'
new kid on the block
🤜🤛
-ish
GraphQL Puts Client Performance First
GraphQL is always the
smallest possible request,
whilst REST generally defaults
to the fullest.
REST Makes Caching Easier At All Levels
The URL in [REST] APIs is a globally unique identifier that the client can leverage to build a cache
In GraphQL, though, there's no URL-like primitive... you need an API implementation to expose such an identifier