30-day plan to master GraphQL for beginners
The only plan you need to get started with GraphQL.
Hey there 👋 - Amrut here!
Happy Sunday to all working hard towards meta-skills mastery!
I have been working with GraphQL in production for more than 3 years.
While GraphQL is fun to work with, beginning to learn about it can be challenging.
I realized what if a structured plan existed for someone getting started in GraphQL.
In today’s newsletter issue, I will share a 30-day actionable plan for someone learning GraphQL.
I will cover the key concepts you must understand well and why you must learn them. I will also share helpful learning resources for you to get started.
The goal is to maximize your learning while minimizing the time, effort, and energy spent scouring and finding the concepts you need to learn and the resources you need to get there.
Let’s get started.
30-day plan
Day 1-5: Basics of GraphQL
Day 1: Introduction to GraphQL
Understanding the history and use cases of GraphQL will help you appreciate why it's becoming a popular alternative to REST.
GraphQL allows clients to request exactly what they need, reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the network, which can improve the performance of mobile applications.
Day 2: GraphQL Basic Types
The core types (Query, Mutation, and Subscription) form the basis of any GraphQL server.
Understanding them is vital to building efficient GraphQL APIs.
Day 3: Writing a Basic GraphQL Query
Queries are fundamental to fetching data in GraphQL.
Learning to write queries equips you with the ability to request specific data you need from an API, eliminating over-fetching problems often associated with RESTful services.
Day 4: Creating a GraphQL Server
Creating your server allows you to practice and understand the server side of GraphQL operations, enabling you to expose your data via a GraphQL API.
Day 5: Recap and Self-Assessment
Reflecting on and reinforcing your learning is crucial to retain information and skills.
Day 6-10: Diving Deeper
Day 6: GraphQL Schemas and Type Definitions
Schemas and Type Definitions are the backbones of a GraphQL server, as they define what queries, mutations, and subscriptions are possible.
Day 7: Resolvers
Resolvers fetch and return the data for your GraphQL server.
Understanding how they work allows you to manage how you provide data to the client.
Day 8: Mutations
Mutations are used for creating, updating, and deleting data.
Learning mutations equips you with the skills to modify server-side data.
Day 9: Subscriptions
Subscriptions enable real-time application functionality, providing instant updates to the client when specific server-side data changes.
Day 10: Recap and Self-Assessment
Revising what you've learned so far is essential for consolidating your understanding of the basics.
Day 11-15: Advanced GraphQL
Day 11: Input Types
Input Types help structure your mutations, allowing you to create more complex and flexible APIs.
Day 12: Unions and Interfaces
These enable handling multiple Object types, allowing for more flexibility and complexity in your GraphQL server.
Day 13: Error Handling
Learning to handle errors effectively in GraphQL helps you build robust and resilient applications.
Day 14: Directives
Directives provide a way to create reusable functionality to manipulate or transform the data in a GraphQL schema.
Day 15: Recap and Self-Assessment
Reflect on your progress and understanding of these advanced concepts.
Day 16-20: Integrating GraphQL with Frontend
Day 16: Apollo Client
Apollo Client provides a comprehensive state management library enabling seamless GraphQL integration in frontend applications.
Day 17: Queries and Mutations in Apollo Client
Implementing queries and mutations in your client-side application lets you fetch and modify server-side data.
Day 18: Caching in Apollo Client
Caching can significantly improve the performance of your application by storing recently fetched data and serving it for future requests.
Day 19: Subscriptions in Apollo Client
Implementing subscriptions in the client allows for real-time updates, significantly improving the user experience in applications such as chat apps or live data feeds.
Day 20: Recap and Self-Assessment
Review the concepts learned and practice implementing them in a small client-side application.
Day 21-25: Real-world Scenarios and Practice
Day 21: Setting up a GraphQL Server with a Database
Connecting a database to your GraphQL server teaches you to handle persistent data and understand how GraphQL can interface with traditional data storage systems.
This knowledge is crucial for building functional, real-world applications.
Day 22: Building a Full-Stack Application with GraphQL and Apollo
Applying all your learnings to build a full-stack application helps consolidate your understanding of how all the pieces fit together.
It allows you to experience and solve real-world issues that arise during development.
Day 23: Implementing User Authentication and Other Features
User authentication is a common requirement for most applications.
Learning to implement it in GraphQL, along with other features like real-time updates and file uploads, gives you practical skills applicable in many development scenarios.
Day 24: GraphQL Best Practices
Understanding and applying best practices ensures that your GraphQL server is optimized, secure, and efficient.
Day 25: Recap and Self-Assessment
Revising what you've learned helps you assess your understanding of the material, consolidate your knowledge, and identify areas where you may need further study.
Day 26-30: Continuous Learning
Day 26: GraphQL Tooling
Tools like GraphiQL, Apollo Studio, and GraphQL Code Generator can significantly speed up your development process.
They provide functionalities like auto-completion, validation, and testing, which are extremely helpful when building and debugging your GraphQL server.
Day 27: Apollo Server Plugins
These allow you to customize your Apollo Server by adding logging and performance tracing features.
This is useful for monitoring your application and ensuring it performs well under different conditions.
Day 28: Schema Stitching and Federation
As your application grows, you may need to divide your schema across multiple GraphQL services.
Learning schema stitching and federation helps you manage this complexity and maintain performance as your application scales.
Day 29: Advanced Topics
Learning about GraphQL with microservices, testing GraphQL servers, etc., will help you understand how to integrate GraphQL into more complex, scalable architectures.
This is particularly important if working in a larger development team or on more complex applications.
Day 30: Recap, Self-Assessment, and Next Steps
This final revision and self-assessment will help consolidate all the knowledge gained over the past month.
From here, you can identify areas where you need further practice or learning and plan your next steps accordingly.
Learning Resources
You can use the following learning resources as you navigate your way through GraphQL:
Official GraphQL Documentation: https://graphql.org/learn/
How to GraphQL: https://www.howtographql.com/
Build a Full stack React & Apollo Tutorial: https://www.apollographql.com/tutorials/fullstack-quickstart/01-introduction
GraphQL Tools: https://the-guild.dev/graphql/tools/docs/generate-schema
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