> so far so good - you're inviting the comparison of "use a real database" to "use a real X", where X could be anything - a bank, or a nuke.
I should've used different angle-brackets. "ANY <X distributed API service call>" would've been better.
> And I'm lost. Do we hope for a BankLite and NukeLite implementations to exist?
No, but it's still worth mocking BankLite and NukeLite with the same call interface and suitable test data, variance, and jitter.
The overriding point is nothing will ever replace "the real thing", but that's not what mocks are for and it's even worth mocking 3rd party network services which can be, if not more, "quirky" than SQL query engines.
I should've used different angle-brackets. "ANY <X distributed API service call>" would've been better.
> And I'm lost. Do we hope for a BankLite and NukeLite implementations to exist?
No, but it's still worth mocking BankLite and NukeLite with the same call interface and suitable test data, variance, and jitter.
The overriding point is nothing will ever replace "the real thing", but that's not what mocks are for and it's even worth mocking 3rd party network services which can be, if not more, "quirky" than SQL query engines.