When should I learn denormalization?
After populate and the N+1 problem. Denormalization is for high-traffic reads where populate is too slow. You copy key fields (author name on the post) and decide whether to update on change or accept staleness.
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More FAQs in Roadmap for Writing APIs With Relationships in Node.js
Understand refs, learn populate, learn the N+1 problem, learn nested populate, learn virtual populate, learn embed vs reference, learn denormalization, learn cascade deletes, learn side-loading, learn indexing for refs, learn pagination with populate, and test.
Refs in Mongoose. A ref field stores an ObjectId and references another model. Without refs, you cannot do populate or handle relationships. This is the foundation.
After basic CRUD and relationships. When you delete a user, their posts and messages should go too. Use deleteMany for each related collection. Do it in a transaction if your MongoDB supports it.
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