Why is this so complex to use compared to the JavaScript SDK?

[danielniccoli]

Take the following example:

const options = { authProvider };
const client = Client.init(options);

let users = await client.api('/users')
	.header('ConsistencyLevel','eventual')
	.filter("endswith(mail,'a@contoso.com')")
	.orderby('userPrincipalName')
	.get();

In Python this becomes:

from msgraph import GraphServiceClient
from msgraph.generated.users.users_request_builder import UsersRequestBuilder
from kiota_abstractions.base_request_configuration import RequestConfiguration
from=snippets&tabs=python
query_params = UsersRequestBuilder.UsersRequestBuilderGetQueryParameters(
		filter = "endswith(mail,'a@contoso.com')",
		orderby = ["userPrincipalName"],
		count = True,
)

request_configuration = RequestConfiguration(
query_parameters = query_params,
)
request_configuration.headers.add("ConsistencyLevel", "eventual")

result = await graph_client.users.get(request_configuration = request_configuration)

This objectively is much more complex and verbose that it needs to be. Why is the Python SDK that way and not written in a similar way to the above, or e.g., the Django ORM?

users = await graph_client.Users \
    .filter("endswith(mail,'a@contoso.com')") \
    .orderby("userPrincipalName") \
    .header('ConsistencyLevel','eventual')

[musale]

Hello @danielniccoli thank you for your question. The sdk is designed like that because of a number of reasons:

1. the sdk is generated using Kiota hence there was a need a standard to cater for various languages. Unfortunately, what JS had implemented wasn't selected.
2. There was need to enable developers to opt-into functionality that they wish to use. Therefore, the graph sdks had to cater for needs of developers who would want to use their own abstractions like http clients. More design information can be found here, and I think it's a good place for a conversation on sdk design https://github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-design.

I will close this and ask you to take the conversation on design to the linked repo if you've more questions.