WPGraphQL at the Desert GraphQL Meetup

Last night I had the pleasure of remotely presenting for the Desert GraphQL Meetup in Phoenix, Arizona.

TL;DR, Here’s the video

Here’s the slides:

https://slides.com/jasonbahl-1/desert-graphql-oct-2019#/

Summary of the presentation

In the presentation I covered the history of WPGraphQL, why the plugin exists, and why it makes sense to continue building for the wider WordPress community.

We look at some of the frustrations with the WordPress REST API that lead to the creation of WPGraphQL.

I quickly reviewed what WordPress looks like, as in what the WordPress Dashboard looks like and what it enables out of the box.

Next, I show how activating WPGraphQL activates a GraphQL API for your WordPress and the WPGraphiQL Plugin adds the GraphiQL IDE to your WordPress dashboard.

We then look at what WordPress looks like, visually, as an Application Data Graph and how to use GraphQL Queries to pick trees out of that graph.

Next we looked at various live examples of GraphQL Queries and explored features of the GraphQL Query Language, such as querying multiple resources in a single request, using variables, arguments, fragments, aliases and directives.

We then compare how to build the same slice of UI using PHP, REST and GraphQL to show how much lower effort it is to use GraphQL compared to alternatives.

I finish up talking about some things I’ve learned while building WPGraphQL, and what’s next now that I am part of the GatsbyJS team.