Learn Neo4j, Serverless and Xstream

Starting from a prebuilt frontend, Jason Lengstorf guides you through the creation of a "Corgi Up-boop App" that uses Netlify Functions and Hasura. You can view [the deployed final product on Netlify](https://egghead-serverless-functions.netlify.app/).

You'll set up the Netlify CLI, and configure a local development environment before writing and deploying functions with a few different use cases.

The first example function bypasses CORS restrictions to retrieve corgi data from an example third-party API.

Next, you'll configure environmental variables to securely communicate with the Unsplash API without exposing private keys to the client.

Serverless functions don't persist data by themselves, so we will use  Hasura to create a GraphQL API for tracking the number of "boops" each corgi receives.

This course is an excellent illustration of the speed of Serverless functions, and how fast you can implement functionality in your web applications.

An all-in-one workflow that combines global deployment, continuous integration, and automatic HTTPS.

netlify

Build a Corgi Up-boop Web App with Netlify Serverless Functions and Hasura

In this course we will learn some of the basics of getting data into and out of Neo4J, as well as touch on some of the libraries and tooling available in the Neo4J community ecosystem, which we will leverage to quickly create and use a full-featured GraphQL API.

We will start by learning how to run and interact with Neo4J locally. Then we will develop a graph model in which to store the data that we pull from SWAPI via REST. We will then create an Apollo GraphQL API driven by a few simple schemas which fit into this model. We will then write some simple code to crawl SWAPI and insert the data into Neo4J through our GraphQL API. Once there is data in the store, we will learn about some of the features in `neo4j-graphql-js` that make connecting and accessing our graph Nodes easier.

Neo4j delivers the lightning-fast read and write performance you need. Neo4j combines native graph storage, scalable architecture optimized for speed, and ACID compliance to ensure predictability of relationship-based queries.

neo4j

Build a Neo4J & GraphQL API

A serverless function is something that is going to allow us to do server-like things without having to manage servers, but an important distinction here is that serverless does not mean that there are **no** servers. 

The environment is actually running on top of an operating system and uses physical servers, but the responsibility for provisioning and managing the infrastructure belongs entirely to the service provider.

Some of the benefits of using serverless functions: 

- **Enhanced scalability.** No need for developers to implement code to scale. It scales automatically.
- **Reduced time to market.** Serverless is an optimized set of tools for building quickly.
- **No boiler code.** A serverless function is just a tiny piece of logic. Reducing the complexity of software.
- **More time for user experience.** Serverless functions allow teams to focus resources on the user experience and not on managing servers.
- **Security.** We can call third-party APIs securely without exposing important data on the client-side.

What Are Serverless Functions?

Netlify makes deploying to production a breeze by configuring your Netlify CLI to your Netlify account and integrating with GitHub.

We'll log in to Netlify through the CLI and initialize a site by completing all the options that the CLI runs us through. Once this is done, Netlify will trigger new builds for your site every time you push to GitHub.

Deploy Serverless Functions to Production on Netlify using the Netlify CLI

Netlify makes developing serverless functions easy with the netlify-cli (`ntl` for short). You'll be able to build and test functions locally as well as publish your functions from the CLI. 

We will install netlify-cli globally and create a `netlify.toml` file that will configure where the CLI should look to run functions that we define, in our case `functions/`. When the application is served up, Netlify runs functions under `/.netlify/functions/`.

Set up a Local Development Environment for Serverless Functions Using Netlify

There are a few ways you can run Netlify serverless functions while you are developing them. 

You can: 

- Navigate to the directory under the `/.netlify/functions/` path
- Curl them using the full URL
- Use an app like Postman

Manually Trigger Netlify Serverless Functions Locally

CORS limits websites from communicating with other domains without the full consent of both sites. Consuming data from a 3rd Party REST API makes it difficult since we can't properly configure the appropriate CORS headers. To solve this, we'll set up a proxy server to request the data using a Netlify function that avoids CORS altogether.

The Third-Party API that we'll be working with will provide the following data: `id`, `name`, `favoriteSong` for each corgi. 

[http://no-cors-api.netlify.app/api/corgis](http://no-cors-api.netlify.app/api/corgis)

We will also use `node-fetch` a light-weight module that brings the `fetch` API to fetch the data into our application.

Circumvent CORS when Accessing a Third-Party API using Netlify Functions 

Environment variables set in a `.env` file can be imported using the Netlify CLI with the following command: `netlify env:import`.

This allows you to manage environment variables directly on Netlify, providing the benefit of security and flexibility of sharing environment variables with your team. 

From inside Netlify, you can access the environment variables in:

`Site settings` > `Build & deploy` > `Environment` > `Environment variables`

Import and Set Environment Variables from a .env file using Netlify CLI

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.

javascript

In this video you'll learn how to deploy a React app to AWS using AWS Amplify Hosting's drag and drop folder functionality. The app will also automatically be globally distributed on AWS's global CDN.

Deploy a React App to AWS in 24 seconds

Cycle.js is a framework where your app is described as a simple function taking an event stream as input and outputting an event stream.

cycle

This lesson is the first in an introduction to Cycle.js. We will see how to build from scratch a toy version of Cycle.js. See how to use RxJS to create simple web apps, and how to separate logic from effects.

Separate Logic from Effects in Cycle.js

There are different types of data in Neo4J: Nodes and Relationships. We will cover the ways to create each type of data: creating nodes with properties, creating nodes with relationships, and creating constraints on nodes and relationships.

Create Nodes and Relationships in Neo4J with Cypher

Once there is data in Neo4J, we need to be able to access it. We will cover the structure of a cypher query to return parts of our graph.

Read Nodes and Relationships in Neo4J with Cypher

The data in our graph is unlikely to stay the same forever. We will cover the syntax used to find and modify existing data in different ways through the use of parameters.

Update Nodes and Relationships in Neo4J with Cypher

Nothing lives forever, so we need to know how to use DELETE and DETACH to get rid of nodes and relationships we no longer want in our graph.

Delete Nodes and Relationships in Neo4J with Cypher

We will learn about `neo4j-graphql-js` and how to leverage it to quickly create a full-featured API backed by Neo4J. We will create a few simple schemas to represent our model.

Use neo4j-graphql-js to Create a Simple API

We will learn to use the `@relation` directive provided by `neo4j-graphql-js` to make the relationships in our model explicit in our schemas.

Explicitly Model Schema Relationships with the @relation Directive in neo4j-graphql-js

We will use automatically generated mutations in a Apollo GraphQL API augmented with `neo4j-graphql-js` to insert data that we get from SWAPI into Neo4J.

Create Data in Neo4J Through a GraphQL API

We will use the `@cypher` directive provided by `neo4j-graphql-js` to return data about how nodes are related to each other in our schemas without writing custom resolvers.


Build Complex Schema Relationships with the @cypher Directive in neo4j-graphql-js

We will use our own custom mutations in an Apollo GraphQL API to update or create data that we scrape from SWAPI into Neo4J with. We will use the `@cypher` directive to use custom merge statements in these mutations.


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