previously from JSON we would just deserialize strings like
"-abv" or "city" or "_id" or "_score" as simple sorts
on fields, ids or scores respectively
while this is simple and compact, it can be ambiguous (for
example if you have a field starting with - or if you have a field
named "_id" already. also, this simple syntax doesnt allow us
to specify more cmoplex options to deal with type/mode/missing
we keep support for the simple string syntax, but now also
recognize a more expressive syntax like:
{
"by": "field",
"field": "abv",
"desc": true,
"type": "string",
"mode": "min",
"missing": "first"
}
type, mode and missing are optional and default to
"auto", "default", and "last" respectively