I’m finally ramping up for longer term development on OSX. I have been impressed with the platform for the most part. Small things are annoying, like zip corrupting files you are zipping (a friend tells me this is in part due to backward compatibility with OS 9)

I’m doing all my database work with Postgres When I first went about setting up postgres, you basically had to compile it yourself or use something like fink. I was not really happy with those solutions. After coming back from OSCON, I discovered a postgres installer from druware.com. This rocks. Point, Click, Install. In recent years, I have grown tired of building software myself after doing it for so many years on linux.

Now to access postgres from ruby and rails, you need to install the postgres driver for ruby. Change the gcc complier to 3.3 and install the postgres gem. If you have not used used any ruby libraries with compiled C extensions, you must first fix the version of ruby that ships with Tiger. with RubyGems installed, do

precode
deathstar:~ doug$ sudo gem install fixrbconfig; sudo fixrbconfig (only if broken osx ruby)
deathstar:~ doug$ sudo gcc_select 3.3
deathstar:~ doug$ sudo gem install postgres — —with-pgsql-dir=/Library/PostgreSQL8
/code/pre

(You have to tell rubygems where druware installed postgres)

Now you are ready to start doing postgres development with ruby.

If you are using postgres on OSX, the installer from druware is definitely worth checking out.