We are very happy to announce a new eBook release! Download GraphQL or Bust today for FREE!

GraphQL or Bust

Discover the benefits of GraphQL and gauge if it’s a good move for your web API: 

Download direct for FREE in PDF, MOBI, or EPUB

Also available for purchase on Leanpub and the Amazon Kindle store (soon!).
All proceeds will be donated to the Salvation Army in Sweden 🇸🇪

GraphQL is the query language making ripples throughout the economy. GraphQL or Bust helps determine the position of GraphQL within the API ecosystem. This volume collates all our writing on GraphQL. We explore things like the benefits of using GraphQL, the differences between it and REST, nuanced security concerns, extending GraphQL with additional tooling, licensing issues, GraphiQL consoles, making a transition to GraphQL from an existing web API, and much more.

Preface

GraphQL

Within the last couple of years, there has been a resurgence of discussion around API design standards such as REST, gRPC, GraphQL, and many others. While the Representational State Transfer (REST) methodology has been a perfect fit for many web APIs – for the past decade or more in some cases – some developers see operational improvements within nuanced methods that break from these original constructs.

Developed by Facebook, GraphQL presents a sea change in how API providers enable access to their data, and can bring high usability benefits to consumers. Smart API owners put emphasis into treating their services as a product; this means improving the developer experience and fine-tuning the user onboarding mechanism. As GraphQL enables an unparalleled ability to display API endpoints and test call behaviors, as well as an operational boost in aggregating API responses, it could very well be the tool API owners are searching for to improve their developer experiences.

But we aren’t quick to bandwagon on any new technology without first opening the floor to debate. So, over the past year we exhausted many subjects on the blog, throwing GraphQL into the security ring, judging the process of migrating a REST API to GraphQL, vetting any outstanding licensing issues, and searching for GraphQL APIs in practice today as evidence of its use. We’ve compared it to other methods of linking API calls, charted industry best practices, and looked at the growing spectrum of GraphQL tooling.

In this volume we’ve aggregated nearly all of the GraphQL knowledge that has been shared on the Nordic APIs blog and at our conferences. Being a relatively new technology, some may still have questions about it, and we hope to answer those questions as well as open avenues of discussion around new concerns. The truth is your future systems likely won’t bust without adopting GraphQL. The title for this eBook represents the fervent community adoption we’ve seen quickly embrace the technology.

For API designers and architects, this eBook release presents a convenient way to tap into a wide range of knowledge that we’ve assembled on the blog over the last year on GraphQL, guided by some of the most impactful Nordic APIs presentations and industry discussion.

So please enjoy this edition, and let us know how we can improve!

Next Release: Strategies for Microservices Architecture

Follow our progress

As we close our focus on GraphQL we turn our attention to a recurring, vital component of modern web API discussion: microservices. In our next compilation, Strategies for Microservices Architecture, we’ll address the top insights and best practices surrounding microservices design.

Stay Connected

Thank you again to our readers, event attendees, and event sponsors and partners. If you appreciate what we’re doing, consider following @NordicAPIs and signing up to our newsletter for curated blog updates and future event announcements. In 2018, we will be conducting LiveCasts; hour-long webinars on niche topics. Watch our first on API Security 101, and stay tuned for more!