Allow alternatives to reflect-metadata for shimming reflect metadata API

[jacobjove]

Describe what you need | want

Typegoose requires a shim for the reflect metadata API but does not need to require reflect-metadata (which is old and heavy) specifically. There are alternatives such as https://github.com/abraham/reflection

Do you have already an idea for the implementation?

Yes. Interchangability of reflect metatdata shims is already implemented by TypeGraphQL; see MichalLytek/type-graphql#1331 (comment)

[hasezoey]

i will consider it when we switch to ESM, because from what i can tell the mentioned library is ESM-only, which is a problem because typegoose will not switch to that any time soon, see #214 (from what i know CJS can be used in ESM, but ESM not in CJS without having a async function somewhere and typegoose currently is sync)

[hasezoey]

just had a user in discord having a problem where reflect-metadata would not set the custom options, but `` worked

so i will consider adding a way to change the reflection package used sooner

just as a note though, if the current reflect-metadata does not work (not adding the proper functions), then a simple install of another reflection package (like @abraham/reflection) and registering it with import '@abraham/reflection'; will work (before any imports of typegoose classes)
(though note that @abraham/reflection is a ES module, and not a CJS module and so cannot be easily run in CJS)

[KeithGillette]

We are using Typegoose with import 'core-js/features/reflect'; from core-js@3.30.2 without issue.

[hasezoey]

@KeithGillette did you confirm that only that reflect library is running? because reflect-metadata is a direct dependency of typegoose currently and theoretically always imported in typegoose

[KeithGillette]

No, @hasezoey, I did not realize that reflect-metadata was loaded directly by Typegoose. Other dependencies I've used calling the Reflect API have required that a Reflect shim be loaded in the project manually.