Company
Date Published
Author
Jens Neuse
Word count
2353
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The declarative approach to API orchestration, popularized by Apollo Connectors, has several fundamental technical problems. These include GraphQL Directives not being designed for infrastructure as code, the verbosity of the `@connect` directive making it hard to understand and maintain complex scenarios, the leaking of implementation details into the GraphQL SDL, and the N+1 problem caused by the declarative nature of the approach. Additionally, testing and debugging connectors is challenging due to their reliance on human-centric workflows and the lack of standard testing frameworks. In contrast, gRPC Plugins, which utilize Generative AI (LLMs) to generate code for API orchestration, offer a more scalable, efficient, and maintainable solution with features such as easy testability, high performance, and support for multiple languages.