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Rapid frontend development with GraphQL

As frontend development gets more complex, I see more and more organizations moving to a model where frontend and backend are implemented by different teams. (another nice example of reverse Conway’s law).

Most of these backends are exposed through REST APIs. This leads to the problem that frontend teams that are using the APIs have to wait for the backend team to complete the development of their APIs. The backend team becomes the bottleneck and causes slowness in development for the frontend team.

Let’s bring GraphQL into the mix…

In the GraphQL world, there is a different approach. The frontend and backend teams can develop in parallel, without stalling the development. The frontend teams can work with mock versions of the API, and use libraries like GraphQL Faker to create fake data. Coding can be completely done with mock data and tests can be written too.

I know that in theory a similar approach would be feasible with REST APIs but these APIs tend to be more static by nature. One GraphQL endpoint can handle a multitude of clients each with their own requirements. It is really hard to have the same flexibility with a REST API, most of them are either too generic(what leads to overfetching) or too specific(what leads to underfetching).

More information: https://www.howtographql.com/basics/1-graphql-is-the-better-rest/

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