Understanding Relationships & Foreign Keys in Mongoose
I'm still new to Node, Mongoose, and Mongo, but I think I can address at least part of your question. :)
Your current method is the same as I tried doing at first. Basically, it ends up storing it very similarly to this (written in JS, since I don't know CoffeeScript):
var todoListSchema = new mongoose.Schema({ name: String, todos: [{ name: String, desc: String, dueOn: Date, completedOn: Date }]});I later found this method, which is what I was looking for, and I think what you were intending:
var todoListSchema = new mongoose.Schema({ name: String, todos: [{ type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'Todo' //Edit: I'd put the schema. Silly me. }]});This stores an array of ObjectIds, which you can then load using Query#populate in Mongoose.
I don't know of the technical implications, but it makes more sense in my brain if I keep them separate, so that's what I'm doing. :)
Edit: Here is a some official docs that might be useful: http://mongoosejs.com/docs/populate.html