by Kelly Goetsch
Ask for what you need, get exactly that
GraphQL is rapidly becoming adopted as the de-facto means of retrieving and changing data, whether the source is an API, a database or some other application that doesn’t expose a nice REST API. With GraphQL, developers can specify exactly the data they want without worrying about where the data is or how to access it. GraphQL then coordinates across the various backend systems to ensure the request is fulfilled, much like a SQL query allows you to easily work across multiple database tables with one command. This is particularly useful for commerce, where the data needed to render a web page or screen may have to come from 10 or 20 different APIs or other systems.
GraphQL is used by a number of who's who companies, ranging from Facebook (its creator) and Twitter to the New York Times. With major commerce platforms just now realizing its potential and starting to introduce support for it, this booklet will provide readers with an overview of what GraphQL is, its benefits and how it can be applied to commerce.
What is GraphQL.
GraphQL’s business and technical benefits.
How GraphQL complements (not replaces) REST APIs.
An overview of GraphQL’s specification.
How GraphQL clients and servers work.
How to incrementally implement GraphQL for large-scale commerce applications.
Kelly Goetsch is Chief Strategy Officer at commercetools. He came to commercetools from Oracle, where he led product management for their microservices initiatives. Before that, he was an architect with ATG.
