[HN Gopher] Netlify Graph: A faster way for teams to develop web...
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Netlify Graph: A faster way for teams to develop web apps with APIs
Author : dwwoelfel
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-02-15 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.netlify.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.netlify.com)
| breakingcups wrote:
| Now watch them add a custom datastore with authorizations a
| little while down the road and enjoy serverless bliss.
| swyx wrote:
| 100% #1 integration i want to see them have with Netlify Graph
| is Fauna or Supabase
| awb wrote:
| Is this free? Couldn't find pricing info.
| dend wrote:
| PM lead for Ecosystem @ Netlify. It's currently free while in
| beta. We haven't yet announced any pricing for the feature.
| zaiste wrote:
| Zapier on Steroids for programmers!
|
| I like how Netlify went with a low-code approach that provides
| not only speed and flexibility, but also greatly helps with long-
| term maintenance. Web apps are now more connected and
| heterogenous than ever - there is a need to quickly and easily
| connect with various APIs. No-code falls short in providing
| performant and maintainable code bases. GraphQL-based tools could
| be the solution. Netlify seems to have taken the lead here. I
| only worry about potential vendor lock-in.
|
| Congrats!
| dend wrote:
| PM lead for the Ecosystem team @ Netlify. Thanks for the
| feedback! This is precisely the balance we are trying to strike
| - simple enough to solve core problems that are routine, and
| yet offering an exit hatch to go and code some additional stuff
| that you might need in your applications.
| easton wrote:
| OT: Funny how this is never the problem I had. I've always had
| trouble with the bits on the screen, not connecting the bits
| behind it. Every time I see a new project that says "connect APIs
| real quick to your frontend" or "one click deploy database table
| don't think about backend" I always think "but you're skipping
| over the fun part!"
|
| Congrats on the launch, this looks really neat.
| sgrove wrote:
| Ah, then you're in luck! Down the road, you should be able to
| tell Netlify Graph how to map the boilerplate-y bits from the
| API to the screen, so you always get something that _works_
| (with your best practices implemented) that you can start
| tweaking from.
|
| We already do this for a handful of frameworks (plain
| functions, next.js, remix, etc.). Here's a bit of an older
| example (with a much older UI) of how it works with a very
| plain project mapping various GraphQL operations to next.js
| https://youtu.be/0LJr15A0t4Y?t=73, including -
| client-side forms - server-side form validation -
| auto-detecting when the user needs to log into a service
| client-side to do some query/action - prompting the user
| to log into the service - re-running the query on
| successful login
|
| Basically, you should be able to click around in an API, run a
| test query, say, "Oh, I want _that_ in my app ", then click a
| button and have it inserted exactly how you and your team would
| have written it.
| seanwilson wrote:
| Can someone give some concrete example use cases for this? So you
| connect this to your Stripe or Spotify account and this lets your
| website visitors do something via client-side JavaScript?
| sgrove wrote:
| There are quite a few, but as a recent public one -
| https://oss.love is built using Netlify Graph. It pulls in data
| via the GitHub API using Netlify Graph, as an example.
|
| Another simple one would be building a chart of Salesforce
| opportunities to serve as an office sales gong
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTaETEkZ6hE
|
| We have customers who build a product using Netlify Graph to
| manage Salesforce leads/opportunities/etc. inside of Slack,
| etc.
| e12e wrote:
| > It pulls in data via the GitHub API using Netlify Graph, as
| an example.
|
| Maybe I'm dense - but what is the value add here? I can pull
| data from github Api and build an app. Or I can pull data via
| netlify graph, from the github api, and build an app?
|
| Does netlify provide the "server side" here, holding my
| github api keys, away from the browser that runs the app? Or
| something else?
| sgrove wrote:
| One of the founders of OneGraph here, happy to answer any
| questions or talk about ideas!
|
| This is what we have been working on since the Netlify
| acquisition https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29253069. Still
| early days and in beta, but excited to see all the DX pieces
| coming together bit by bit!
|
| When we did our original Launch HN (back in summer 2018!
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17602951) this was one of
| the primary use-cases we had in mind. GraphQL provides such a
| rich layer for API tooling, but bringing it all together from a
| developer's point of view can be pretty challenging. Hopefully
| this spin on it (and the built-in integrations we're rolling out
| for specific frameworks) should make it significantly easier.
|
| Lots of plans (a pure vscode workflow is high on my personal
| wishlist), but it's time to share the current state of things
| with all of you folks!
| zaiste wrote:
| Congrats to the whole team!
|
| Is it possible to add a custom (3rd party) GraphQL endpoint to
| Netlify Graph at this stage?
| sgrove wrote:
| It's technically possible on our backend, but we haven't
| opened it up in a user-facing way _yet_. Definitely high on
| the priority list though!
| swampthing wrote:
| Congrats Sean!
| gavinray wrote:
| Really awesome to see Netlify pick up OneGraph, Sean. I've
| always recommended it to people =)
| sgrove wrote:
| Great to hear it Gavin, thank you for the kind words!
| modo_ wrote:
| This is awesome. I've been abusing Zapier for years now as a
| middle layer to integrate with 3rd parties without having to
| implement their APIs. Zapier's UI is built for non-technical
| users, anad it makes a lot of advanced use cases very
| cumbersome to implement.. Super excited to try reimplementing
| some of our more complicated zaps with this!
|
| Are you all planning to implement as extensive of a collection
| of integrations as Zapier has?
| sgrove wrote:
| Plenty of plans, now we just need to execute on 'em!
| nprateem wrote:
| This looks interesting. I haven't got a clue what netlify does
| though. That's one truly useless homepage.
| swyx wrote:
| Netlify is a platform for static site hosting on CDNs, with the
| CI/CD to build those sites, and serverless/auth functions for
| serveside logic, plus local dev to emulate them. They coined
| the "Jamstack" architecture/movement which has helped frontend
| devs and agencies be more productive.
| swyx wrote:
| this is the direction i've been wanting Netlify to go in for
| years! Netlify has done very well as an aggregator of frontend
| developers, and GraphQL is the perfect protocol to 1) build
| better tooling, which onegraph has a lot of ideas on, 2)
| commoditize their complements
| (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/).
|
| i hope more updates keep coming (i want explorer in the UI! not
| the CLI!) but this is a positive start.
| sgrove wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| The whole flow works really, really well inside of vscode with
| the GraphQL extension - you get autocomplete, docs, etc. And
| upon save, it's that same as if you had edited it in the web
| UI. It should even be compatible with the GraphiQL explorer
| extension inside of vscode (though I haven't tried it yet)
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GabrielN...
|
| And it's always tempting fate to say "we have more planned",
| but, well, we have more planned...
| SingAlong wrote:
| From having maintained 60+ API integrations for a B2B business, I
| can see how Netlify Graph (or previously OneGraph) solves a real
| problem.
|
| The initial integration is usually straightforward, but the
| maintanence of these seemingly simple API wrappers is what bites
| back in the long run.
|
| With having lots of integrations, these are the usual failure
| points:
|
| 1. Teams find it hard to keep track of all the changelogs across
| APIs.
|
| 2. Failing at [1] means that API changes get noticed much later
| and having to cram the work into product development cycles.
| dend wrote:
| PM team lead for Ecosystem @ Netlify here. Thanks for the
| feedback - this is exactly what we're trying to address with
| Netlify Graph. There is a lot of variability as APIs change,
| and there's a lot of value in abstracting out that complexity
| behind a consistent data model.
| sgrove wrote:
| Just finished an episode of Learn with Jason showing how to use
| this to build a small Spotify app using the Netlify Graph
| tooling: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1299016321?t=0h25m21s (the
| link starts at the first step of the new app and dives right into
| the experience)
|
| Jason knew next to nothing about the current state of Netlify
| Graph (to keep the experience authentic), so it's pretty fun to
| see his reactions.
|
| Also, the app is live for anyone to use! https://netlify-graph-
| nextjs.netlify.app/SpotifySearchForm
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