Comment by timcobb

> I also believe that using GraphQL without a compiler like Relay or some query/schema generation tooling is an anti-pattern. If you're not going to use a compiler/query generation tool, you probably won't get much out of GraphQL either.

How is this easier or faster than writing a few lines of code at BFF?

If you're interested in an example of really good tooling and DevEx for GraphQL, then may I shamelessly promote this video in which I demonstrate the Isograph VSCode extension: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tNWbVOjpQw

TLDR, you get nice features like: if the field you're selecting doesn't exist, the extension will create the field for you (as a client field.) And your entire app is built of client fields that reference each other and eventually bottom out at server fields.

URQL and gql.tada are great client side tooling innovations.

Curious what tooling you're for graphql? Intellij has excellent support for it as does Postman.

> overfetching is never such a big problem

Wait, what? Overfetching is easily one of the top #3 reasons for the enshittification on the modern web! It's one of the primary causes of incredible slowdowns we've all experienced.

Just go to any slow web app, press F12 and look at the megabytes transferred on the network tab. Copy-paste all text on the screen and save it to a file. Count the kilobytes of "human readable" text, and then divide by the megabytes over the wire to work out the efficiency. For notoriously slow web apps, this is often 0.5% or worse, even if filtering down to API requests only!