14/1/2019graphql

GraphQL Meetup #1: A Great Beginning

Miłosz Jarosiewicz

3 min read

front end developmentsoftware developmentjavasscriptmeetupmirumee

GraphQL lands in Wroclaw

It’s in the bank. On January 29 we hosted the first official GraphQL Meetup in Wrocław. We’ve been into the technology for a while, so we decided to share some knowledge and see if there was an appetite among our local friends.

We booked a 120-seat conference center and set up an event, half in hope, half in expectation. It blew our minds that over 700 people signed up. Next time we’re gonna need a bigger boat!

The mix of people told us a lot about the technology. Nearly two-thirds of attendees have just started working with GraphQL and wanted to improve their projects, a fifth have heard of the tech and wanted to know what the fuss was all about, and the remaining 14% were those curious types who were hearing about GraphQL for the very first time.

72 people answered to our question about using GraphQL

Great tech talks and live coding

Marcin Gębala, Lead Dev on our Saleor project, kicked off the talks with his own take on how the technology is perceived right now: “GraphQL is still a relatively new technology for some people but I wanted to convince them that it is already mature in 2019. People shouldn’t be afraid to use it in their projects.” He showed some of the coolest tools that the ecosystem provides and what makes it exciting.

Our Head of Technology, Patryk Zawadzki, then gave the audience a tour of the GraphQL transport protocol to show how GraphQL clients talk to servers using the HTTP protocol and Websockets; and guest speaker Bartek Pietrowski gave a great lightning talk about about the technical aspects of caching.

It was also an evening of firsts. Rafal Pitoń, Lead Developer of our own Ariadne library for GraphQL implementations in Python, gave his inaugural public speech and also introduced Ariadne in a tech talk for the first time. GraphQL is a new technology but we are already building things to augment our experience with it. Rafał showed that we are past early experimentation; we are looking at enhancements.

A foundation for building a tech community

While chatting to attendees after the event, we learnt about some of the niches in which people are using GraphQL. We found out that developers are experiencing a great number of positive benefits but there are a few common problems that are starting to appear as people repeatedly work with the technology. Coming together as a community helps highlight which issues are common and how we can overcome them, as well helping us spread knowledge and best practices.

We want to build more with GraphQL. And we want to build a community around the technology here in Wrocław, because we have some of the best developers in the world in our city. The first Meetup was a great place to start and we are already thinking about the next events, so keep your eyes open for updates.

GraphQL Wroclaw MeetUp group — sign up.

Video presentations — watch the talks (PL).

Photos from the event — see the whole album.

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