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Conclusion

I reached my goal of coming up with a solution that can take of the query cache updating in a generic and robust way.

The solution is to use Orbit.js. I additionally developed a library for using Orbit.js together with TanStack Query which combines the best of both worlds:

  • The excellent UI framework integrations and asynchronous state management of TanStack Query

  • The amazing data orchestration capabilities of Orbit.js

Orbit.js eliminates the need for writing query cache updaters. However, you still need to write updaters, where you tell Orbit about changes to data. While these updaters aren't as concise as I had expected and the number of lines of code might not differ all too much from the number of lines of code of a query cache updater, the code in an updater is significantly more expressive than the code in a query cache updater and the code in an updater is also more static and decoupled, especially from the UI of the application.

Further development​

Orbit.js is an exciting library in many ways and I feel like its potential hasn't been fully tapped into by the web development and industry. Orbit.js is designed in a way which screams "extend me!", with hooks and slots to be found in every corner, that can be used for customizing it and adding features and functionality on top of its already super powerful and solid core. I could potentially see an entire ecosystem of solutions forming around Orbit.js, which would greatly benefit developers who work on large-scale, complex web applications.

At a certain point, however, Orbit.js won't be enough. For really complex web applications this might be the case. I predict the query language and the data model is where Orbit.js would first fall short. Not in the data orchestration features. In that department I've yet to imagine a better solution. But while Orbit.js lets you describe relationships in your data and query based on relationships, it comes with some limitations and its nowhere close to being as good as fully-fledged SQL.

For really complex web applications, I think it would be worthwhile investigating SQLite as a WebAssembly module.