[theptip]

The canonical REST solution of query params to add nested fields gets you quite far:

GET /myresource?extra=foo,bar

sure you over fetch a bit if you have multiple accessors.

But agreed, if you have highly nested data especially when accessed with multiple different query purposes then REST might not be the best fit.

I think GraphQL has been positioned as a general purpose tool and for that I am with the author, REST is a better go-to for most usecases.

[hansonkd]

I guess depending on the context of a simple app one level could be viewed as far.

Any more levels and you have now reinvented GraphQL

[eadmund]

> Any more levels and you have now reinvented GraphQL

Sure, but reinventing the wheel can be good, particularly when the existing wheel technology is oblong, lumpy and constructed of stone and cheese.

I’m just bitter than GraphQL endpoints return 200 on errors. If you’re returning 200 on errors, then you’re not really doing HTTP; you’re just using HTTP as a substrate for some other protocol, in which case you might as well just open a port and serve that protocol directly and not pretend to be HTTP.

[vbezhenar]

> you’re just using HTTP as a substrate for some other protocol, in which case you might as well just open a port and serve that protocol directly and not pretend to be HTTP.

Browser does not allow to access any ports with any protocols.

Often intermediate software gets in the way as well. For example with Kubernetes it's trivial to expose HTTP service using Ingress and it's not trivial to expose other protocols.

Another HTTP plus is that it's trivially secured by TLS and every developer knows API for that. Using TLS for your own protocol or QUIC is absolutely not trivial and probably more like arcane knowledge.

[WorldMaker]

OData existed before GraphQL in the wild, it's possible to suggest GraphQL reinvented OData.

https://www.odata.org/

[hansonkd]

The point is GQL is currently the standard for querying dynamic nested data shapes not that it is the first or was the first.

Look at OData download stats on Pypi it had 2 downlaods the last day. Graphql-core for python? 624,201. that is not even on the same planet.

If you don't use GQL and want a system of querying nested data you will be using a less used protocol that is analogous to GQL so you might as well use the standard.

[WorldMaker]

OData is still currently a standard for querying (among other things) nested data shapes. The point was it is a matter of fact that as a standard it predates GraphQL and as a matter of ecosystem perspective whether or not you think it is a more or less used protocol.

To trade anecdotes for anecdotes: On Nuget, the Microsoft.Data.OData package marked deprecated and marked with CVEs for critical bugs still has an average of 36.3K per day downloads. (Its successors combine for about double that.) The top GraphQL library (of the same name, unadorned) still only has 9.3K per day downloads. In .NET if you want a system of querying nested data (that is also "REST compatible"), why would you use a less used protocol like GraphQL?