4 ms·

Setting up PostgreSQL for Ruby on Rails development on OS X

41 points by wlll 15y ago

wlll 15y ago
If anyone has any questions about the process, or gets stuck leave them as comments on my post, I'll help out where I can.
- telemachos 15y ago
  It looks like a great overview. One thought: you might mention Lunchy (https://github.com/mperham/lunchy https://github.com/mperham/lunchy) as a nice Ruby-friendly way to manage the not-so-nice, not-so-friendly launchctl business.
listrophy 15y ago
Great guide, even if one completely ignores the RoR part.
- wlll 15y ago
  Thanks for the comment, that's great to hear!
techscruggs 15y ago
With the advent of Homebrew, why would manually compile from source for your local dev environment?
- wlll 15y ago
  My article suggests and assumes you are using Homebrew.
  - techscruggs 15y ago
    Crap, my apologies, I obviously skimmed that article as opposed to reading it. mea culpa
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
pilif 15y ago
Why not just use the one-click-installer? http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdownload#osx http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdow... it neatly creates a system user if needed, modifies sysctl.conf (for shmmax) and installs a few items in the Application folder for quickly starting and stopping the server.
- telemachos 15y ago
  The article mentions the Postgres installer, but mostly assumes the reader uses Homebrew (MacPorts is mentioned at the bottom as well). I have no way to get real numbers, but given Homebrew's overall popularity on Github, I suspect that assumption is a good bet for a very large number of Rails developers on OSX. Once you choose a package manager, it tends to be easier to always use that, rather than use one-off binary installers. (In fact, the one-off binary installers can lead to known permissions problems when it comes to Homebrew specifically.)
technomancy 15y ago
I'm just gonna leave this right here... http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/11/installing-mysql-on-ubuntu http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/11/installing-mysql...
- wlll 15y ago
  Seems irrelevant…
  - telemachos 15y ago
    Read the whole post in the link (or skim it at least). I'm pretty sure that Technomancy is indirectly making a point about Apple's lack of a package manager. Something like this, I'm guessing: http://teddziuba.com/2011/03/osx-unsuitable-web-development.html http://teddziuba.com/2011/03/osx-unsuitable-web-development.... (the part about package management, that is). Note for both pro- and anti-Mac folks. I'm simply trying to show how the grandparent post is relevant - why it's here. I'm not stating an opinion one way or the other on anything else.
chopsueyar 15y ago
Virtual machine!!!
- roelbondoc 15y ago
  I agree. Developing on Ubuntu on a VM has been a great experience for me so far. It seems much less painful to develop on a platform that is similar to where you will be deploying.
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    When I first read the headline, I immediately wondered who was deploying to a production OS X server with PostgreSQL.

41 points by wlll 15y ago

wlll 15y ago

If anyone has any questions about the process, or gets stuck leave them as comments on my post, I'll help out where I can.

telemachos 15y ago
It looks like a great overview. One thought: you might mention Lunchy (https://github.com/mperham/lunchy https://github.com/mperham/lunchy) as a nice Ruby-friendly way to manage the not-so-nice, not-so-friendly launchctl business.

listrophy 15y ago

Great guide, even if one completely ignores the RoR part.

wlll 15y ago
Thanks for the comment, that's great to hear!

techscruggs 15y ago

With the advent of Homebrew, why would manually compile from source for your local dev environment?

wlll 15y ago
My article suggests and assumes you are using Homebrew.
- techscruggs 15y ago
  Crap, my apologies, I obviously skimmed that article as opposed to reading it. mea culpa
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

pilif 15y ago

Why not just use the one-click-installer? http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdownload#osx http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdow... it neatly creates a system user if needed, modifies sysctl.conf (for shmmax) and installs a few items in the Application folder for quickly starting and stopping the server.

telemachos 15y ago
The article mentions the Postgres installer, but mostly assumes the reader uses Homebrew (MacPorts is mentioned at the bottom as well). I have no way to get real numbers, but given Homebrew's overall popularity on Github, I suspect that assumption is a good bet for a very large number of Rails developers on OSX. Once you choose a package manager, it tends to be easier to always use that, rather than use one-off binary installers. (In fact, the one-off binary installers can lead to known permissions problems when it comes to Homebrew specifically.)

technomancy 15y ago

I'm just gonna leave this right here... http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/11/installing-mysql-on-ubuntu http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/11/installing-mysql...

wlll 15y ago
Seems irrelevant…
- telemachos 15y ago
  Read the whole post in the link (or skim it at least). I'm pretty sure that Technomancy is indirectly making a point about Apple's lack of a package manager. Something like this, I'm guessing: http://teddziuba.com/2011/03/osx-unsuitable-web-development.html http://teddziuba.com/2011/03/osx-unsuitable-web-development.... (the part about package management, that is). Note for both pro- and anti-Mac folks. I'm simply trying to show how the grandparent post is relevant - why it's here. I'm not stating an opinion one way or the other on anything else.

chopsueyar 15y ago

Virtual machine!!!

roelbondoc 15y ago
I agree. Developing on Ubuntu on a VM has been a great experience for me so far. It seems much less painful to develop on a platform that is similar to where you will be deploying.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  When I first read the headline, I immediately wondered who was deploying to a production OS X server with PostgreSQL.