clickhouse-java VS dbt-unit-testing

Agree with the OP that SQL will almost assuredly still be in use for 20+ years in the future, given the simplicity and flexibility of the declarative language, standardization, and as applicable to today as it was then to our big data problems.

Any discussion of SQL at scale must include ClickHouse [https://clickhouse.com/docs/en/install#self-managed-install], given it's broad open-source use, integrations available for Spark with JDBC [https://github.com/ClickHouse/clickhouse-jdbc/] or the open-source Spark-ClickHouse Connector [https://github.com/housepower/spark-clickhouse-connector], and capability to scale SQL as a network service.

Disclosure: I work for ClickHouse

If you use dbt for transformations Dbt Unit Testing (https://github.com/EqualExperts/dbt-unit-testing) is getting some attention (https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/languages-and-frameworks?blipid=202304042)

dbt-unit-testing

We use this and take an example-based tests approach for any non-trivial tables: https://github.com/EqualExperts/dbt-unit-testing

> How do you test some SQL logic in isolation?

I do this using sql

1. Extracting an 'ephemeral model' to different model file

2. Mock out this model in upstream model in unit tests https://github.com/EqualExperts/dbt-unit-testing

3. Write unit tests for this model.

This is not different than regular software development in a language like java.

I would argue its even better better because unit tests are always in tabular format and pretty easy to understand. Java unit tests on other hand are never read by devs in practice.

I haven't done it yet but there are some popular blogs as well as a DBT package someone created.

> I really don’t understand the communities obsession with unwieldy tools like DBT.

It lets me write test first sql transforms. I never thought TDD sql would be possible. My sql is so much more readable with common logic extracted into ephmeral models. I practice same method to write clear code to write sql, eg: too many mocks = refactor into separate model ( class) .

I think DBT made this possible with refs that can be swapped out with mocks. This is the awesome library I am using https://github.com/EqualExperts/dbt-unit-testing