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[MUSIC]

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Hi there, I'm Isaac Lee and
welcome to introduction to GraphQL.

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In this course,
I'll show you a whole new method for

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fetching data from your backend.

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You'll learn how to request data in the
exact shape we wanna get it, make changes

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to our data, and use some handy tricks
to make our code even more reusable.

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GraphQL is composed of two main parts,
the query language,

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which is used to request data, and the
framework that processes these queries.

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In this course,
we'll be focusing on the query language,

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which is the meat of GraphQL.

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GraphQL's unique language allows
us to specify the exact format

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that we want to receive our data in.

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Other benefits of GraphQL will
include self documenting APIs,

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the ability to fetch deeply nested
data in a single request and

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the ability to mount GraphQL
in front of any existing API.

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So what exactly do we mean
by self documenting API?

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This just mean that by
looking at the API's schema,

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it's easy to understand what the data
coming out of it will look like.

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Let's take a quick look
at an example schema.

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As you can see,
the schema looks a lot like JSON,

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without knowing anything
else like GraphQL.

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I can guess that this movie
object will have an ID field,

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a title field, a tagline field,
and the studio field.

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Since the schema is expressed
in a format we're familiar with,

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you can easily predict which queries
will work and which ones won't.

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Building on this concept makes fetching
deeply nested data easier than ever.

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If we need data that is nested inside
of another object, like Studio for

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example, we can just look at
the schema for the nested object.

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Which in this case, is the Studio type.

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And right away, we know which fields
are available for our response.

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Lastly, GraphQL is super
flexible as a backend.

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When it comes to developing new APIs,
you can start from scratch

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with a GraphQL server that communicates
directly with your database.

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However, if you already have an API
that's responsible for communicating with

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your database, you can just bolt
GraphQL right in front of that API.

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GraphQL doesn't care where the data
comes from which makes it useful for

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a wide variety of applications.

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We won't be covering how to implement
a GraphQL backend in this course.

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Just know that when it comes time to,

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GraphQL can be implemented in
just about any environment.