When we look at REST implementations in the wild, we frequently see REST misused to naively retrieve object graphs through chatty interactions between client and server. Facebook's GraphQL is an interesting alternative to REST that might be a better approach for this very common use case. As a protocol for remotely retrieving object graphs, GraphQL has received enormous attention recently. One of GraphQL's most interesting features is its consumer-oriented nature: The structure of a response is driven entirely by the client, not the server. This decouples the consumer and forces the server to obey Postel's law. Client implementations are now available in many programming languages, but we have seen a flurry of interest of Facebook's Relay, a JavaScript framework that was designed to support the React.js stateless component model.
When we look at REST implementations in the wild, we frequently see REST misused to naively retrieve object graphs through chatty interactions between client and server. Facebook's GraphQL is an interesting alternative to REST that might be a better approach for this very common use case. As a protocol for remotely retrieving object graphs, GraphQL has received enormous attention recently. One of GraphQL's most interesting features is its consumer-oriented nature: The structure of a response is driven entirely by the client, not the server. This decouples the consumer and forces the server to obey Postel's law. Client implementations are now available in many programming languages, but we have seen a flurry of interest of Facebook's Relay, a JavaScript framework that was designed to support the React.js stateless component model.