I came from a Microsoft background, when I was there I complained about some aspects of it, but in hindsight one thing I miss a lot is a good IDE for SQL and database related development. SQL server didn’t have anything amazing, but it did the job and was stable.

I’m a big believer in visualisation and easy visualisation when working with data. It’s there to be used and if you can’t visualise it simply, if you can muck around with it and fiddle and massage it into various shapes and sizes easily then it’s more likely to be left alone. Data that’s left to rot is like leaving gold to rust. If gold rusted.

In short data is valuable, but only if it’s used.

In my quest for tools I’ve tried a few and found none that I would actually pay for, except the one I’ve been using now for a couple of months without a problem. DBVisualiser Free edition, I’d pay for that. It’s lucky too because they make a paid version with a bunch of extra features.

I’m always on the lookout for better applications to improve my performance and more importantly my enjoyment at work. So far this has been the closest application I’ve found to make MySQL a joy to use on the Mac. The free version does 99% of what I want to do, the pro version just seems to add features to make life even easier.

I’d urge people working with a database on the Mac to give DBVisualiser a try.