dbt-unit-testing VS fugue

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

Please integrate it with Fugue.

https://github.com/fugue-project/fugue

Fugue is an interesting library in this space , though I haven’t tried it

https://github.com/fugue-project/fugue

A unified interface for distributed computing. Fugue executes SQL, Python, and Pandas code on Spark, Dask and Ray without any rewrites.

fugue — distributed computing done easy

This looks similar to fugue, am I right? How do they compare?

I am looking forward to how Substrait could help removing this friction. It aims to provide a standardised intermediate query language (lower level than SQL) to connect frontend user interfaces like SQL or data frame libraries with backend analytical computing engines. It is linked to the Arrow ecosystem. Something like Ibis or Fugue could become the front and DuckDB the backend engine.

There's dask-sql, but I think it is being abandoned for fugue-project. I'm actually excited for this project as it is trying to provide a backend agnostic solution, which would seem like a difficult, lofty goal. I wish them luck.