Waterwheel, the Drupal SDK for JavaScript developers

prestonso
alwaysworking

As Drupal begins to be more widely used as a back end for web services and for application ecosystems by extension, developers of wildly diverse backgrounds are now consuming and manipulating data from Drupal in unprecedented ways. With Drupal 8 and core REST support providing an API-first vision for the decoupled future, it is eminently well-prepared to back a bevy of applications with divergent approaches. There's just one problem: JavaScript and native application developers don't speak Drupal.

Waterwheel, our client- and server-side JavaScript library, helps developers talk with Drupal without having to learn about core REST's authentication system or its approach to serializing Drupal data. Waterwheel allows developers with a JavaScript background to read from and write to Drupal without having to learn the nuances of how Drupal's core REST API works, how field values are exposed as JSON, or even which resource routes to query to fetch the correct data. In short, Waterwheel is a Drupal SDK for JavaScript developers building Drupal-backed applications.

Do you have a JavaScript-focused team that is increasingly frustrated by the unique challenges of consuming and manipulating Drupal data? Do you have ad-hoc XMLHttpRequests strewn throughout your code because you need to fetch resources from different routes? Or do you want to get away from the issues of REST API integration and jump more rapidly into your actual application, thereby shortening your time to market? If so, Waterwheel is the answer for your front-end developers.

Join Waterwheel creators Matt Grill and Preston So of Acquia as we delve into the motivations, issues, challenges, and rewards of API-first Drupal, core REST usage, and Waterwheel itself. We'll talk about how Waterwheel is good for your business and projects, for your developers and workflows, and for your overall architecture. We'll also briefly discuss the roadmap for Waterwheel and its exciting future.

Here are some of the topics we'll cover:

  • Headless CMSes and content as a service
  • API-first Drupal
  • Core REST in Drupal 8
  • Why Waterwheel?
  • Requests: GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE
  • Content entity coverage
  • Querying and manipulating data
  • Waterwheel usage
  • Query operations
  • Conditions, ranges, and sorting
  • Epilogue: The future of Waterwheel

This session is for Drupal developers interested in decoupled front ends, JavaScript developers interested in using Drupal as a back end, and architects and technical decision-makers interested in leveraging Drupal as an API-first data service. Some knowledge of JavaScript is presumed.

Register NOW

Session Track

Horizons

Experience Level

Intermediate

Drupal Version