So, what you are saying is reimplement graphQL.
it's not hard.
In my specific case, using Flask-Marshmallow i can do this
```
some_resource = Resource.find_by_id(resource_id)
arg = request.args.get('type_of_resource')
if arg == 'with_commments':
return full_resource_schema.dump(some_resource), 200
if arg == 'no_comments':
return no_comments_schema.dump(some_resource), 200
there i just implemented graphql in 6 lines of code
Dare i even say switching to graphql and onboarding developers to graphql is a much more resource intensive process than adding another endpoint (or a couple).
As a BE/remote I basically taught myself most of elixir's graphQL framework in a day (wait, that was yesterday), while under feature pressure (due this afternoon), mostly by poking around and doing a bit of TDD. There are parts that I really hate about graphQL, but overall I consider it a win.
Instead of doing a simple GET /a/b/1/c and presenting that data structure, they now need to define a query, think about what resources to pull into that query etc. If the query ends up being slow, they have to understand why and work on more complex changes than simply asking the BE team for a smaller response with a few query params.
We quickly realized that expecting them to learn our data model and how to use it efficiently would be much more complicated than exposing every plausible use-case explicitly. We could do this on the "API front-end" by building a set of high-level utilities that would embed the GraphQL queries, but that would essentially double much of the work being done in the front-end (and more than double if some customers want to use Python scripting while others want JS and others want TCL or Perl).
So, we decided that the best place to expose those high-level abstractions is exactly the REST API, where it is maximally re-usable.
Most API teams will give you all the resources that you need.
It is most likely the case that the FE team will ask not for more, but rather, for less.
This was the exact problem why GraphQl was created in the first place - to account for Facebook's mobile platform, because they were receiving way too much data that needed to be trimmed because they didn't want to be sending like 500kb of json over mobile networks.
Competent API teams will give you all the resources that you need to be productive as a FE engineer, and if it is the case that your data needs some trimming, then go ahead and ask your decoupled backend team, while you can go ahead and keep working asynchronously while they get that done for you.
Not Fatal as you think it is.
Graphql works the same way if i'm not mistaken.
and if its the case that you don't want the comments at all, then in the conditionals write your sql statements
if you want comments
select * from resource where id=some resource id
if you don't
select without comments from resource where id=some resource id
there's no need to get into specifics, the point is graphql is not bringing anything novel. everything it claims to do can be implemented in RESt if you're willing to implement it.
With a REST API, the “resource” type will always have an optional “comments” field, whatever the value of arg is.
With a GraphQL API you’ll have the right type depending on your query.
In general, the tooling/spec has thousands of open bugs, isnt going anywhere, moves very slowly and is missing fundamental features.
https://github.com/OAI/OpenAPI-Specification/issues/1998 heres the ticket where it will inevitably be ignored and die. But even if it was supported in the spec, the open source generators wont support it anyways.
Said generators also uses "logic less" templates to generate something that very much needs logic. As a FE dev, I love nothing more than to fork a an archaic Java based generator to get the client gen working...not.
So if you wanted comments you would send a request with a header like "Accept: application/resource_with_comments", and you'd send a Header like "Accept: application/resource_without_comments".
The thing is, few people want this level of control in practice. This would generally lead to a huge proliferation of types for very little practical benefit. Much simpler to have a set of well-defined types with optional fields than to define a new type for each combination of fields used today.
- some fields of the resource - some fields of the comments - some fields of the user that made the comments
API consumers definitely aren't the ones who should be thinking about something like joining behavior, since GraphQL doesn't give nearly enough control to achieve performant joining.
Basic filtering can also be easily achieved with ad-hoc methods, such as query params. No need for a full-blown GraphQL language server in front of all your services.
At least, this has been our experience with B2B software sales.
Of course, YMMV depending on market etc.