apidays Munich 2025 - GraphQL 101: I won't REST, until you GraphQL, Surbhi Singh (GoDaddy.com)

GraphQL 101: I won't REST, until you GraphQL
Surbhi Singh, Software Development Engineer III at GoDaddy.com

apidays Munich 2025 - Accelerate AI Use Cases with APIs
July 2 & 3, 2025

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Transcript

1. GraphQL 101 I won’t REST, until you GraphQL! Surbhi Singh Software Engineer 1
2. About Me BACKGROUND Hi, I am a Software Engineer in the Domains Backend Platform team at GoDaddy. I enjoy building things. I am passionate about teaching and am all about sharing my learnings with the community because that’s how we grow together. In my free time, I enjoy playing sports and my guitar. 2 https://www.linkedin.com/in/surbhi -singh/ surbhi.chauhan011@gmail.com
3. My goal is to bring knowledge and joy through learnings and laughter. 3
4. Contents 4 06 08 14 17 20 21 APIs REST APIs Problems with REST GraphQL APIs Similarities Use-cases: when to choose
5. What is an API ?
6. How do you build APIs? • Can I use REST ? • Can I use GraphQL ?
7. What is REST ? • Representational State Transfer • A common API standard • Defined as a set of rules • Uber API, Twitter API, Facebook Rest API
8. Building blocks of REST 1. URIs https://example.com/v1/products/ https://example.com/v1/orders REST is resource-oriented! https://example.com/v1/orders https://example.com/v1/getAllOrders 2. Http Verbs C: Post R: Get U: Put D: Delete HTTP request
9. HTTP Request
10. HTTP Response
11. Do you know why REST is so widely used ?
12. Nothing is good enough for us humans!! There’s always a room for improvement.
13. Problems with REST APIs 1. Overfetching
14. No Teds were harmed during this conversation Jon still knows nothing
15. Problems with REST APIs 2. Underfetching
16. Graph API GraphQL to the rescue!
17. Basic building blocks of a GraphQL API 1. Schema 2. Resolvers
18. Schema
19. Resolvers
20. Similarities ?
21. Differences ? Context -based preferences *There’s no perfect fit for all, only the best fit for the job *Quotes by Surbhi
22. 1. Simple APIs Weather API 1. Get London’s current weather GET https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/current.json ?key=API_KEY&q=London 1. Get Berlin’s weather forecast for the next 3 days GET https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json ?key=API_KEY&q=Berlin&days=3
23. 2. Client Needs Flexibility Instagram API 1. Get Instagram homepage POST https://www.instagram.com/api/graphql
24. 3.1 Complex Related Data Instagram API
25. 3.2 Multiple Unrelated Data but Needed Simultaneously Instagram API
26. 4. Strong Caching is Needed NASA Image and Video Library API
27. 5. Rapid UI Iteration
28. 6. Avoid Versioning
29. Why is the internet moving from REST to GraphQL ? Not really
30. Helpful resources • https://roadmap.sh/graphql - community created roadmap with AI tutor assist. • Medium article on “GraphQL with Golang - A deep dive from basics to Advanced”
31. Q. Who likes to see things spinning ? 31 Fourth option has loaded, look again!
32. Thank you Audience. Thank you Apidays.