I spent my hack-a-thing time learning GraphQL. My API experience primarily comes from building RESTful APIs in cs52, so this seemed like a logical next step. I was interested in GraphQL because of its flexibility, especially in querying. While a RESTful API has a route for each accessible piece of data, GraphQL allows developers to select the exact pieces of data they need.
I worked alone on this hack-a-thing
After reading about GraphQL and completing a general introductory tutorial, I followed two tutorials to build a client that interacts with an API that uses GraphQL and a GraphQL server itself.
I first learned the basics of GraphQL. This included how to define a schema and complete queries, mutations, and subscriptions to a database. Next, I learned the basics of creating a React client that interacts with a GraphQL backend and how to create a GraphQL backend using Node.js. One thing I took away from the client tutorial was that communication with the server was a lot more involved than the full-stack web projects I previously completed (React/Redux, Node, Express, MongoDB). On the server-side, I liked the modularity of GraphQL and how different parts of the data's "flow" through the server are broken apart.
The tutorials were well-built and easy to follow. I was able to understand what code I was writing, and later in the tutorials I was able to correctly go a step or two ahead based on the introduction to the task at hand.
Not much didn't work. Looking back at what I completed, I wish I completed the "GraphQL using Node" tutorial first. This would have given me a stronger foundation to what was going on when editing the frontend rather than just trusting the provided server code. I also would have used the server I created to build the entire stack on my own.
- Clone this repo
- To see the React and Apollo tutorial result:
cd react-apollo tutorialyarn- In a second terminal window:
cd serveryarn
yarn startin both directories- Client is
localhost:3000 - Server is
localhost:4000
- Client is
- To see the Node and GraphQL tutorial result:
cd node-graphql-tutorialnpm installnpx prisma migrate save --experimentalnpx prisma migrate up --experimentalnpm start- GraphQL Playground hosted on
localhost:4000
- GraphQL Playground hosted on