Next Steps: Beyond REST APIs

You've mastered REST API design with Node.js. Here are the next technologies and patterns to explore as you continue your backend engineering journey.

GraphQL

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GraphQL is a query language and runtime for APIs, developed by Facebook in 2012 and open-sourced in 2015.

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Why GraphQL Was Created

Facebook needed to solve specific problems with their mobile apps:

• Over-fetching: REST endpoints returned unnecessary data, wasting bandwidth
• Under-fetching: Multiple requests needed to get related data
• API versioning: Hard to evolve APIs without breaking clients

How It Works

# Client requests exactly what they need
query {
  user(id: "123") {
    name
    email
    posts(limit: 5) {
      title
      createdAt
    }
  }
}

Key Benefits:

• Single endpoint for all queries
• Clients specify exact data needs
• Strong type system
• Self-documenting schema
• No versioning needed

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When to use GraphQL:

• Multiple client types (web, mobile, TV)
• Complex, nested data relationships
• Bandwidth-sensitive applications
• Rapid frontend iteration </aside>

gRPC and Protocol Buffers

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gRPC is a high-performance RPC (Remote Procedure Call) framework developed by Google, using Protocol Buffers for serialization.

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