Automated Mongoose: A Red Herring?

So for many months I have been attempting to do automate the views and methods of Mongoose Schemas. However, the longer I attempt it, the further I realize how loose Mongoose can be. A small example is the SchemaTypes (Which has little to no documentation). At this Location we see an issue I and another person has had an issue with. While the maintainer isn’t very interested in fixing this, despite it existing in every other schema type (His own reasons are his, not for me to accept or deny). I have gone down a seperate route

    if(path.hasOwnProperty("caster")){
      return "Array"
    }else if(typeof path.instance != "undefined"){
      return path.instance;
    }else
      return path.options.type.name;

It’s not a huge issue, but it results in a little frustration. None the less I’m finding there are many issues with the whole scenario. And I don’t mean in terms of SchemaTypes, I mean other issues. Amoung them being…

  • Extended SchemaTypes: Urls are Essentially Strings, however they must go through a different validation process. Should I extend the String SchemaType inorder to ensure it has the same possibilities?
  • Faceted Searching: This is very important. When it comes down to finding exactly or around what you need, its nice to have a way to trim down the issues. However, each SchemaType has their own MongoDB Comparison Operators or Evaluation Operators. Of which I cannot be sure of which can be applied to which (Unless I check for Ancestry)
  • Different Properties are viewed differently: though the input may be the same, ensureing a Title is seen as a title and a url is used as an href isn’t a given. This may seem obvious, however I have been attempting for many months to ensure that there is no difference between routing and viewing. Mostly because I enjoy being a lazy dry programmer.
  • Different Models use a different Organization Pattern. This is Most apperent with Maps and Photo oriented data where nobody really cares about the text unless they click on something.
  • Almost all Models will use some sort of Auxillary Index or Model. For Example: You can have a user model. Has its name, email, password and role. Basic Stuff. But then we want to add Events. What have they created? What have they liked? etc. In addition, we want to add an index to the number of views to a particular picture but also compare those views to videos. This is where we start creating other things that are not attatched to the Original Model however the information gets appended for the views’ purposes.
  • Terms and Conditions, TourGuide-ing and Multi Page Methods. This also Is pretty important as Even though the person may have successfully authenticated. That does not mean they are good to go. However, how are we to know the next step in a multi page method?
  • User Roles. What is the best manner to document what the user’s role is, the role heirarchy and ensuring we know who can do what in the routing and the viewing.
  • Pretty URLs: Nobody wants to see /Items/3746982119433234. Its ugly, unfamiliar. People would rather see /item/best_red_rose_bouquet
  • Model Index and Root: What do we do here? Give them a preview? tell them to do X, Y and Z?
  • Aggregating Content: How do we show the content aggregated? With a Schema?

There are many issues at hand. And It leads me to further understand how nice content management systems are. Not because they are bloated. Not because they are broken. Not because they don’t offer all the features the language of your choice has to offer. Not because they have rediculous patterns for event emitting and caching. Or how they don’t like anything more than the good ‘ol post. But because they solved those problems for you. They solve them by forcing you to do it the hardway. They solve it by giving you an excuse to complain and want better. They solve it by other people getting motivated and solving the problem through “plugins” or “modules”.

I want to automate mongoose so bad. I can feel its at the tip of my finger. Barely inches away. And yet I understand, even after I’m done with the beginnings, there is so much more that you need to make sure people can do or have access to the libraries you use to do it.

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