this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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Programming
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Oh, sure.
Primaly, it was needlessly complicated.
I read through a rabbit trail of (unconvincing) documents saying "here's why the way that has worked for decades for you isn't good enough anymore" leading to "and that's why we decided not to implement this quality of life feature you have learned to expect".
It had a "only fit for the truly faithful" cult vibe, last time I checked it, which was about a year ago.
The big thing that turned me off was I did not find ~~a lack of~~ tooling to auto-generate an HTML page that helps explore the API. It seems to me that it would be easier to do so when using strong types, not harder.
Edit 3: I never found: https://docs.github.com/en/graphql/overview/explorer I swear I really did look for it. Pinky promise.
Edit: And since I'm already in brutal honestly mode, the GraphQL docs read, to me, as being by someone who didn't really deeply understand the HTTP specification, or at least couldn't really articulate why they needed a new tool that used less (as far as I could tell from the docs) of that specification, than existing tools.
Betting against hugely popular protocols sometimes, very rarely, pays off. But GraphQL is already well on the way to being forgotten. I don't expect GraphQL to reach a tool maturity level that causes me to ever take a second look.
Edit: For context, I once bet against
git. So what the hell do I know. We shall see!well, there’s a schema description built into compliant graphql apis and a tool called graphiql that consumes that and provides exactly that api explorer that you’re looking for. many graphql backend frameworks embed graphiql
https://docs.github.com/en/graphql/overview/explorer
Today I learned! Thanks!
Thousand yard stare at SOAP
So many technologies doing crap that plain old HTTP already does:
Made me spit my drink, laughing. Thank you. Very true.
So did you ever actually use it? Or did you just read docs about it.
Thank all that is holy, I did not use it. I had other options, which I chose, because I'm the boss.
Edit: I'm not proud of my occasional tendency to wind y'all up for fun, but I will say it helps proactively build my block list of folks who can't take a joke.
Hmm. You sure have a strong hatred of a thing you never used, about which your main objection (no HTML explorer) is completely untrue.
I don't think anyone would say you need GraphQL for a tiny 10-20 endpoint project. It's for big projects.
If Json wasn't status quo, coming from a language that's status quo, all these comments could be reversed against it.
And well, if you're not using JavaScript, Json is not that great anyways.
What I like about graphql that Json over rest doesn't have it: fragments and types.
On types: have you ever got across bad swagger documentation? Like a parameter called something unclear like usertype, with no explanation of what it is or examples, ? Oh yeah, it's a string. Very helpful. Well in graph ql, that parameter is likely to be called userType, which if you go into the schema file, you'll likely see it's an enum and you'll also see all possible values. If your backend developer is half decent you'll also get comments right there next to the enum. You don't need a tool to spit out a html page that you'll host somewher. Most reasonable information can be part of the schema file, and that's it.
All that said, everyone now is familiar with Json and rest. Because of that, small projects are better doing it. But that supremacy will eventually end. And for large projects,, specially with static types, graphql makes some things much easier, like types, fragments and unions.