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It's not clear to me that GraphQL and Datalog solve the same problems. GraphQL, to me, is fundamentally about designing the interface between a client and serve

It's not clear to me that GraphQL and Datalog solve the same problems. GraphQL, to me, is fundamentally about designing the interface between a client and server, decoupled from the logic that satisfies requests. I think it's actually not a query language at all, any more than HTTP is a query language. Datalog is very much a query engine. And it's not super clear to me that the services exposed by a server map cleanly to a logic model. GraphQL requires no such purity.

fmjrey 7y ago
That: GraphQL is a mechanism for clients to specify the data document they want, and for servers to specify the documents they can serve. Datalog, or SQL for that matter, is a mechanism to expose data within a database. The GraphQL data model must be geared towards the end client point of view, e.g. some internal IDs can be hidden. Datalog on the other hand exposes the internal model of a data store, which is domain driven not client driven. Also you do not want end client devices to have the full power of datalog or SQL on your database, or else be ready to always watch those crazy queries that bring your server down to a crawl. GraphQL at least provides an indirection point where you can apply some form of resource control.