Learn Alpine, Apollo and Immutable

Welcome to this beginner level series on Alpine JS! 👋🏞

Alpine JS is a rugged, minimal framework for composing JavaScript behaviour in your markup. It brings declarative, reactive, data-driven nature of libraries like React or Vue to your HTML templates.

In this series, you will learn about Alpine's handy **directives**. You'll discover how to define a component scope with `x-data`, run code on mount with `x-init`, attach event listeners with `x-on`, display data with `x-text`, decide wether or not to show an element with `x-show`, iterate through data with `x-for`, retrieve a DOM element with `x-ref`, learn how to achieve _two-way data binding_ with `x-model`, and much more.

You'll also learn how **"modifiers"** can be applied and chained to directives to provide additional functionality: control the animation transition of entering and leaving DOM elements, debounce an event listener, etc.

We'll also touch on what Alpine calls **"magic properties"**, which give you access to native browser events (`$event`), reference to DOM elements (`$refs`), and more.

You'll gradually discover Alpine's API and syntax, from building simple tabs to a mini app that fetches a dog picture based on a "breed" search field. 🐶

**Get ready to breathe some fresh air** - it's time to walk into cool, green Alpine pastures! 🏞

Alpine.js offers you the reactive and declarative nature of big frameworks like Vue or React at a much lower cost.

You get to keep your DOM, and sprinkle in behavior as you see fit.

alpine

Sprinkle declarative, reactive behaviour on your HTML with Alpine JS

GraphQL is a fan favorite for good reason. It lets a client make specific, complex, and/or aggregate queries for data, and it’s user-friendly to boot.

If you’ve been meaning to learn GraphQL and start harnessing its powers, this is a great place to start.

This course is for GraphQL newbies with a basic understanding of React. It focuses on the client-side implementation of GraphQL usage using the Apollo client.

We’ll start with a guide on how to add the Apollo client to an existing project, then move on using the Query and Mutation components to fetch and manipulate data using a GraphQL API.

React is one of the web’s most popular frameworks for building JavaScript applications. 

If you know what you’re doing, React can drastically simplify how you build, use, and maintain code.

Whether you’re a React newbie or you’re ready for advanced techniques, you can level-up with egghead. Explore our in-depth courses, lessons, and community resources to build more powerful applications and crack open your career.

react

GraphQL Data in React with Apollo Client

Most developers would raise an eyebrow if they saw database queries being done in a for-loop, but GraphQL provides just enough abstraction that it isn't always intuitive exactly how many times each resolver fires at scale, nor is it obvious how to batch operations efficiently and still return the correct results to the correct consumer.

You'll learn how to use the GraphQL Data Loader pattern to improve the performance of your application, and solve scaling issues before they become a problem.

To do this, we'll first implement our own naive version of the pattern to understand why the API is shaped how it is. Then we will switch over to the official DataLoader package and explore the benefits further.

## Skills you'll Gain

- Implement a cache layer to optimize your requests
- Batch requests so your Database isn't overloaded
- Build a performant GraphQL API

Apollo provides a universal GraphQL API on top of your existing services, so you can build new application features fast without waiting on backend changes.

apollo

Use GraphQL Data Loaders to Prevent Scaling Issues by Batching & Caching Database Requests

At the core of a good client-side GraphQL library is a cache. The cache is very important for improving the efficiency of your data retrieval and providing your users with a clean user experience.

In this course, we're going to see how Apollo's powerful cache helps easily solve complex UI problems, such as pagination, handling loading and error states, optimistic updates, and minimizing network requests.

We'll start from the basics, and look at how to make queries and mutations, but then we'll look at how the cache is behind most of Apollo's immediate benefits. We'll explore in-depth how it works, how it stores data, and how we can manually modify it manually for advanced scenarios.

Even if your backend doesn't fully support GraphQL yet, we'll look at how to write GraphQL queries in your components that retrieve local client state under the hood - or that can even make REST API calls.

Manage State in React Apps with Apollo Client and GraphQL

**Get started building dynamic apps with GraphQL and Vue3.**

As your app scales, so does the complexity of managing your routes and API endpoints. 

It gets tiresome. 

But this aspect of web development can be streamlined considerably! 

GraphQL is a powerful tool for querying and mutating your data. In this course, we are going to create a Vue3 app that leverages GraphQL to create a dynamic front end.

But what does GraphQL *do*? 

Its power comes from giving you a *single* endpoint that you make all your queries to. Instead of making a request to a specific endpoint and getting a fixed response, you can write flexible queries to a single endpoint.

![REST vs GraphQL diagram](https://res.cloudinary.com/dg3gyk0gu/image/upload/v1638989029/course-resources/create-a-graphql-powered-vue-3-application/rest_vs_graphql.png)

Vue3 has some great new features that we will be exploring, such as the setup script syntax. But you won't just be exploring Vue3's new features, we will be building a dynamic front end with an index, view pages generated from data, and forms.

To make our frontend dynamic, we will be powering it with GraphQL. We start with the basics by creating queries but we move on to more advanced topics such as query params, mutations, and pagination.

To actually use GraphQL in our Vue app we will be using the Vue Apollo Client. Which gives us convenient methods for making queries, getting the data back into the client, and handling errors.

## Gain These Skills

- Add GraphQL to a Vue 3 project
- Query and mutate data with GraphQL in Vue 3
- Create data-driven views with Apollo client
- Handle routing within a Vue 3 project
- Implement optimistic updates and infinite scroll

## Prerequisites

Some entry-level knowledge on Vue and GraphQL is recommended, but this course is beginner-friendly enough to where it isn't a strict requirement.

If you want to build a deeper foundation for both Vue and GraphQL we have a couple of awesome courses that you can hack through. 

For Vue, check out **[The Beginner's Guide to Vue 3](https://egghead.io/courses/the-beginner-s-guide-to-vue-3-1c46da8b),** which is also by Kevin. It's great for both newcomers to web dev and veterans alike. 

And for GraphQL, work through **[GraphQL Query Language](https://egghead.io/courses/graphql-query-language)** from Eve Porcello. Eve literally wrote the book on learning GraphQL and her course is similarly top quality. 

## What's Next?

Progressive Web Apps are a more advanced topic, and converting an existing Single Page **Vue** App into one makes for an excellent follow-up project. **->** [Offline-First Progressive Web Apps (PWA) in Vue.js](https://egghead.io/courses/offline-first-progressive-web-apps-pwa-in-vue-js)

If you want to take your **GraphQL** game to the next level, then becoming an expert in designing GraphQL schemas is the way to go. **->** [Designing GraphQL Schemas](https://egghead.io/courses/designing-graphql-schemas-99db)

And I know the following recommendation is a React course but *it really is that good*. You will learn some **advanced** techniques that will be applicable to Vue or any other Apollo compatible framework that you work with. **->** [Manage State in React Apps with Apollo Client and GraphQL](https://egghead.io/courses/manage-state-in-react-apps-with-apollo-client-and-graphql-a45b3b89)

Vue (pronounced /vjuː/, like view) is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only, and is very easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects. On the other hand, Vue is also perfectly capable of powering sophisticated Single-Page Applications when used in combination with modern tooling and supporting libraries.

Create a GraphQL Powered Vue 3 Application

Immutable.js provides many Persistent Immutable data structures including: List, Stack, Map, OrderedMap, Set, OrderedSet and Record.

immutable

There are lots of techniques for accessing data kept in your Lists. In this lesson, we will compare how data stored in collections can be accessed directly in both standard Arrays and ImmutableJS Lists. We will also look at how to find data inside an Immutable List using the `findEntry` and `findIndex` methods.

Get items in an ImmutableJS List

The reduce function in ImmutableJS allows you to transform and create new data from an existing data structure. In this example, we will do some math and calculate a sum based on data in an ImmutableJS Map.

Calculate a sum using reduce in ImmutableJS

The key to being productive with Immutable JS is understanding how to update values that are nested. Using `setIn` you can place a new value directly into an existing or new path. If you need access to the previous value before setting the new one, you can use `updateIn` instead. `updateIn`  accepts the same path lookups as `setIn`, but gives you a callback function instead so that you can use the previous value however you wish and return an updated version.

Updating nested values with ImmutableJS

ImmutableJS reduce functions can be nested to get data out of complex data structures. In this example, we will create an Immutable List from an Immutable Map that is nested inside of an Immutable List that is itself nested inside of an Immutable Map.

Create a list with nested reduce functions in ImmutableJS

By utilizing immutable data structures, we can write code that is easier to reason about, avoid mutation-related bugs, reduce complexity, and even gain some performance benefits along the way.

Before diving too far into Facebook's [Immutable.js](https://facebook.github.io/immutable-js/) library, let's take a moment to examine some of the pains and obstacles that mutable data structures present. 

We'll take a brief glimpse at putting the Immutable "List" data structure to work by example. We will convert our usage of Javascript's native `Array` to use [Immutable.List](https://facebook.github.io/immutable-js/docs/#/List) in order to address a mutation-related "bug" caused by multiple objects "sharing" a mutable structure (array) by reference.

Immutable.js: Introduction - Easing the Pains of Mutability

In this lesson we'll look at some of the differences between standard JavaScript Arrays and Immutable Lists. We'll create Immutable.JS Lists from scratch, as well as by converting regular Arrays. We will also compare and contrast the `push` and `concat` methods between both types of collection.

Create an immutable List using Immutable.js

In this lesson I refactor a simple application built with Apollo, GraphQL, and React to utilize Apollo Boost. Apollo Boost combines many of the Apollo libraries we had to import and configure separately into one awesome API. 

Resources:

[What's in Apollo Boost](https://github.com/apollographql/apollo-client/tree/master/packages/apollo-boost#whats-in-apollo-boost)

[Zero config GraphQL State Management](https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/zero-config-graphql-state-management-27b1f1b3c2c3)


Zero-config Apollo + GraphQL with Apollo Boost

In this lesson we look at how the Apollo @client directive can be used to fetch client-side state along with server data with one query. I also show how to update the client-side state using a mutation connected to a button.

Additional Resources [Apollo Client 2.0](https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/apollo-client-2-0-beyond-graphql-apis-888807b53afe)


Fetch Server Data and Client-side State in One Query using React Apollo + GraphQL

In this lesson I refactor a React component that utilizes a higher-order component for mutations to the new Mutation render prop component baked into react-apollo 2.1.

Additional Resources:
https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/introducing-react-apollo-2-1-c837cc23d926

Update Application State with React Apollo Mutation Component

In this lesson I refactor some code that utilizes the Mutation component to update client-side cache to use the new ApolloConsumer component baked into react-apollo 2.1.

Additional Resources: 
https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/introducing-react-apollo-2-1-c837cc23d926

Update Application State with React Apollo ApolloConsumer Component

In this lesson we’ll execute GraphQL queries using our AWS AppSync API and show how to display the returned data inside of our React application using the AWS AppSync GraphQL client.

We'll create a query string using `gql` (`graphql-tag`) and pass that query into a `graphql` Higher-order component where we will pass the resulting data in our exisiting app.


Execute Queries to an AWS AppSync GraphQL API from a React Application

In this lesson, we’ll execute GraphQL mutations using our AWS AppSync API and show how to add data to the database from a React web application using the AWS AppSync GraphQL client.

We'll create a `mutation` query string that will call `createTodo` that is defined in our WAS AppSync GraphQL client. This query will be passed in as props from a Higher-order component and we'll wire up input in React to feed values into this query.

Execute Mutations to an AWS AppSync GraphQL API from a React Application

In this lesson, we’ll show how you can have your mutations work when the user is offline. We’ll handle the offline mutation with an optimistic response, then when the user comes back online the data will be sent to the dashboard for a seamless user experience.



Implement an Optimistic Response to a React UI & Showcasing Offline Functionality

In this lesson we’ll show how to use GraphQL subscriptions coming from our AWS AppSync API to listen to real time data changes in a React application and render the new data as it comes in.

Subscribe to New Data in a React Application with AWS AppSync GraphQL Subscriptions

Building a real world, scalable & production-ready GraphQL API is hard. In this course, we’ll learn how to create a production-ready GraphQL API that can handle everything from queries to mutations & subscriptions. We’ll also connect to our API from a React application and execute queries, mutations & subscriptions using the new API.



Course Overview: Scalable Offline-Ready GraphQL Applications with AWS AppSync & React

You already know that Apollo Client can manage your remote data and state from a GraphQL server, but did you know that you can also use it to manage local state in your React apps? You can! 

`apollo-link-state` lets you query and mutate local state the same as you would a GraphQL server. This means that you don't need to add _another_ dependency like Redux or MobX to your app. 

Managing your remote and local state using the same interface results in a codebase that's easier to maintain and reason about.

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