Thoughts on Facebook's GraphQL?

Hi, LD crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sc8Pyc51uU and
http://hueypetersen.com/posts/2015/02/02/first-thoughts-on-graph-ql/

I've been working with Facebook's ReactJS framework, so I was paying
attention to the recent ReactJS Conf where they announced GraphQL and Relay
as a method of composing complex API queries that return data in the
requested format.

React lets you build up interfaces out of components that each have their
own properties and state. Relay lets you compose representations of the
data each component (and its children (and its children)...) need from the
server. It uses a system of labeled node IDs to distinguish the different
items from one another and to define relationships between them.

Declaring data needs at the component level and having those requirements
swept up into a composed request by parents is a great win for building
easily modified React applications. But adding a new JSON-like language to
the toolset is a significant cost, even if Facebook will mostly open source
their implementation soon.

I was wondering if any of the folks on this list have tried to attack this
problem of composing complex requests for linked data using a JSON-LD
format. My communication between server API and client application will
essentially be in compact form JSON-LD, where many of the items already
will be assigned an @id. No doubt the server-side implementation of GraphQL
or any similar tech would be very complex, but it might be worth it!


*Nate Otto, Developer*
concentricsky.com