The rise and fall of transformers

In this rather short section, I will try to explain why most transformer technologies are gone these days.

Transformers were a pattern that created gravity around the GraphQL ecosystem – they showed people that with GraphQL, you could define your system and execute it. Giving users the technology to write the schema, attach directives, and have the backend with the database and authorization ready was a really good feature that made GraphQL popular.

But while it was advertised that with the use of transformers, you could create your backend with GraphQL only, this was not without drawbacks. If the backend was just for really simple database operations, then you could make it with transformers, but when complexity was needed, users were forced to migrate to another technology – repelling them from transformers.

Unfortunately, some transformers failed to meet the requirements of complex use cases. They often lacked the necessary...