GraphQL: What is it and how can we use it?

Enough REST. Kick your api into action with GraphQL

GraphQL is a powerful new tool that structures how clients talk to the persistence mechanisms of your software applications' back end. For the last 20 years, REST and SOAP have been the winning concepts among engineers for structuring such communications. Not practicing sound RESTful techniques has been frowned upon by industry snobs for over a decade. But now, tools like GraphQL have enhanced our ability to structure our application's expected web requests to meet the challenges of the modern age, such as working with cloud compute hosting, serverless tech stacks, and micro-service integrations. Like REST, GraphQL allows the architect to decouple their application objects from their persistence layer. Unlike REST, the GraphQL result is much more readable and portable to various application components. This allows freedom of choice over where long term data is persisted, even allowing for multiple complex backend data stores without the client needing to know how any of it works in order to interact, query, or mutate data. In the new age of computing, many different clients can talk with many different data stores, even in a simple application. GraphQL is the bridge that allows all of that to happen seamlessly.

About the presentation:
Matt will demo and discuss a serverless web application that uses GraphQL. The application is an accounting game for college level students. Students compete in simulated financial markets throughout the semester and are automatically graded on the accuracy of their submitted financial reports.

About Matt:
Matt is the founder and CTO of Nerkle Ltd., a network of tech professionals who specialize and collaborate on serverless application development. Nerkle works on high quality prototypes for startups and internal projects in the Healthcare industry. Matt was a Senior Software Engineer II for Shutterfly for 7 years where he worked on the photobooks team, which created the highest grossing product at Shutterfly, ever.