I’m not sure you made it past the “Why is MongoDB so popular” part of the article, which I agree is irrelevant but understood and appreciated as background/context.

Just a little ways further in the author does discuss some of the concrete cases you seem so interested in, including 1) the inability to query with familiar SQL syntax, 2) the inability to express relationships between different document types, 3) the lack of referential integrity (and the need to code, test, and maintain this yourself), and 4) the optional nature of data types and other constraints.

He then goes on to point out that 5) using a relational database (correctly) “reduces the number of edge cases in your application code” and reduces the number of possible application states by reducing the uncertainty around data types and constraints.

Finally, he 6) calls out Mongo’s “scalability” as the generally irrelevant argument that it is in most cases.

Could he have made these cases with more rigor? Sure. But to say that he didn’t make them at all doesn’t make his position bad, just relatively unsupported (relative to your subjective criteria).

And ignoring the fact that he did actually make these cases makes your objection to them seem pretty biased or based on a pretty cursory reading.

I never said you had a responsibility to make a better case. I’m just suggesting that he made at least 6 concrete cases, just not to the level of detail that satisfied you. I was willing to attribute the best possible motive to the author, i.e. that it was his intent for his article to present these at a high level, not that he was trying to “pull a fast one” and “get away” without providing rigorous proof for each.

Personally, I see WAY too many “Mongo is awesome!” articles with far less “proof” than this author provided. I thought it was refreshing to see someone challenge the conventional “wisdom” even at a high level.