For some reason, PostgreSQL is sorta a pain to get working on the Mac. Much of this is that the ports version does bizarre things, such as make all the directories you expect to have end with the Postgres version number. Once you install it, you have to go symlink a bunch of things just to make it work sensibly. To top it off, the way ports (used to, maybe not now) adds the Postgres user makes it so that it shows up on the login screen. The Mysql installs don’t do that. It’s odd to me that a database that’s some weird conglomeration of Oracle and Sun is easier to get up and running, but it’s true and annoying.
Apparently, my brainwaves have been radiating that annoyance somewhat strongly, and was picked up by a developer who appears to live right here in Atlanta. Andy Satori is maintaining PostgreSQL binary installers for mac. He’s also built a few lightweight gui tools to use along with Postgres, including a pretty decent Cocoa query tool:
Installing the package was easy and there’s no Postgres user on my login screen. Double win. If you want Postgres on your mac, this is definitely the way to go.
Making my Postgres filled evening even better, I didn’t even have to go through a series of elaborate contortions to get my gem to build. gem install postgres was all I needed.
To round out the Postgres post, check out this visualization on the PostgreSQL project commit history.
