Learn Angularfire, Apollo and Egghead

Miscellaneous one-off lessons on debugging, productivity hacks, and JavaScript tricks.

JavaScript® (often shortened to JS) is a lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions, most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic, and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

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Tips and Tricks

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.

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GraphQL Data in React with Apollo Client

This is the video companion to the [egghead.io Instructor Guide](https://howtoegghead.com/instructor/).

Screencasting is hard! There are virtually infinite ways to produce one. For an egghead.io lesson we expect several key aspects to be met. We want to make sure that our lessons have depth and clarity. Clarity is important and starts with the technical aspects of recording your screen and voice. Once we have achieved this objective level of clarity, we dip into the stylistic aspects of recording a lesson. The style is subjective, and the goal of an egghead.io lesson is not to have an army of uniform drone producing flavorless video content for the masses.

Our mission is to make you a badass screencaster. We want to push you to another level. We've found that a small set of standard practices will create an awesome experience for the student, and eliminate frustration as we teach by providing a repeatable pattern for success. It’s not complicated. In fact, it is simple, but it isn’t easy.


This course will show you how to produce an egghead.io lesson. We strive for consistency in style, and these lessons will demonstrate the core elements that create our brand screencasts. Let’s learn how together.

Bite-size video tutorials for badass web developers.

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Record Badass Screencasts for egghead.io

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.

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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

Any extra information on the screen will easily distract the audience from the purpose of your lesson. Do your best to remove any extra notifications, UI, or other information that would take away from what you're teaching.

Remove Distractions

Any information you would want to put into an Intro or Outro belongs in the accompanying description, title, course page, etc. The lesson is only for showing the process. Talking about yourself, the lesson, or other lessons is a waste of time.

Avoid Intros and Outros

Tangents are opportunities for other lessons. When you find yourself drifting off-topic because you feel you _need_ to explain  some code you wrote, consider how that piece of code fits back into a "How do I?" question, then come up with a separate lesson to capture it.

Stay on Topic

Recording can be intimidating, so it's best to just hit the record button and start talking. Take it one thought at a time. Sit quietly, think about what you're going to say/type, then do it. If you mess, up, undo back to when you were quiet and try again. Once you get a good take, move on to the next thought. The ideal raw recording is a ton of bad takes and one good take for each thought. So when you get to the editing phase, you quickly clear out the bad takes and leave the good ones.

Record One Thought at a Time

Editing a raw lesson video is a very simple process. You simply watch your own lesson and edit out all the bad takes and dead space using the "Ripple Delete" command. You will be left with a nice, cut lesson ready to export and upload.

Edit with Ripple Delete

Video is a one-way form of communication, so user's don't have the chance to ask you to clarify or ask "Where does X fit in?" This places the burden on you to guide their eyes as you explain how all the little pieces of the code fit together. When your application has a "flow", "X triggers Y, Y triggers Z", make sure to "show the flow" by walking them through where each chunk of code fits. This involves a lot of mouse movement (or fancy keyboard selection shortcuts) and hightlighting to bring it all together.

Guide Their Eyes

Code is usually pretty good at explaining itself. So it's best to just start writing code while you talking about it, then see if any additional explanation is required. When you fall into the trap of a long-winded explanation before you begin coding, you risk confusing the audience or unnecessarily repeating yourself.

Show First, then Maybe Explain

Before recording your first lesson, pick a title that accurately reflects what you plan on teaching. Use the "How do I..." trick to properly frame your lesson and title. "How do I dig a hole with a spoon?" would be answered with a lesson titled "Dig a Hole with a Spoon." Or "How do I eat a lobster with chopsticks?" would be answered with a lesson titled "Eat a Lobster with Chopsticks." 

Pick a Lesson Title

“We’ll just do it in post!”

This is always a phrase to be uttered with caution, but armed with just a couple of handy tools, we can to a lot of magic in post production even if we aren’t Hollywood editors. We will learn about the screencast editors best friend Ripple Delete. Then we will fine tune the recording removing any ummmm's or long running processes like installs or builds. Finally, we will make sure everything looks and sounds good and save it for publication!

Edit a screencast for publication

Teaching an egghead lesson should feel like walking the audience through a set of instructions. Do this, then that, move that, twist this, finally push that. The audience wants to see you putting the code together. Assembling your demo while they watch makes it feel much more real and achievable.

Teach Step-by-Step

Forgetting to change your resolution or setting up your mic will result in an unusable lesson. So please, please, please, set your resolution to 1280x720 (HiDPI), set your mic input to "Onyx Blackjack", and confirm that your mic loud enough (it helps to put your mouth as close to the mic as possible).

Prepare to Record - Screen Resolution and Mic Check

You aren’t the “1-take dizzle”. Instead of trying to get an entire lesson captured in a single capture, consider capturing audio and video in chunks. With our without a script, capturing in chunks makes it easy to redo parts and stay on-topic. You might see a repeating pattern of typing a bit of code > stop and explain as needed > typing a bit of code > repeat.

Capture video and audio in “bite-sized” chunks

Our lesson has been planned, recorded, and edited. It’s ready to be uploaded to egghead.io! Victory dance. Let’s see how it all turned out.

Review final screencast result

Setting up audio gear can be tricky. It goes from fairly straightforward “computer mic” to very complex “NPR sound booth”. We are striving for something in between. Most egghead recording gear uses a professional grade microphone, connected to a USB interface with an XLR cable, and finally, the USB interface connects to the computer. Regardless of the specific, we need to verify that it sounds good! In this lesson we show how to keep your audio volume input levels as high in the green as possible without turning red (clipping).

Verify my gear is properly set up

egghead.io lessons are example driven. We don’t rely on slide decks, instead we **focus on code**. This code first approach is how we explain things to students. Armed with a lesson title and summary that describes the goals, we will avoid polite introductions and jump right into showing how to make code.