You Might Not Need GraphQL

After writing about how GraphQL and REST differ in various regards, and taking a closer look at caching in particular, I wanted to write about how you can get some of the benefits of GraphQL into an existing endpoint-based API.

It’s finally live, and over on the Runscope blog.

Normally I’d post this sort of thing on here, but I’ve got a smashed racing bike to pay for, Runscope are awesomely generous with their rates, and they didn’t meddle with the article in the slightest - other than defeating the usual bevy of typos.

This article aims to highlight the fact that a lot of what is popular about GraphQL is not actually new. That’s not to shit-talk GraphQL, but OData covers a lot of the same concepts (with a less lovely syntax), SOAP was doing a lot of this and getting a bad wrap, and - as was pointed out in the comments - SPARQL had a good go at the whole “standardisation” thing GraphQL fans keep touting about their new fave query language.