Any developer who has made the switch from Microsoft-land to Apple-topia is aware of the basic differences between Microsoft’s SQL offering and the popular open source SQL server MySQL. One of Microsoft SQL Server’s greatest strengths for SME uses is Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, and for the older switchers, Microsoft Query Analyser. Both being exceptional interfaces for productive SQL development.

I for one miss that environment, and have been pretty frustrated over the open source offerings for Mac OS X. There are some options, of which ranks up top for me personally is CocoaMySQL. Other than delving into the shell with the mysql client, Mac users are not left with much else. That is until the MySQL Workbench software hits the scene, which according to the project page is not too far away. 

MySQL Workbench is a cross-platform, visual database design tool developed by MySQL. It is the highly anticipated successor application of the DBDesigner4 project. MySQL Workbench will be available as a native GUI tool on Window, Linux and OS X.  

from dev.mysql.com 

Currently available for Linux in an Alpha release and available as a stable release for Windows. The feedback from MySQL has been intermittent, but I’m sure that considering the Linux version status, the OS X version won’t be far behind.

Tags: alpha, linux, mac, Mac OS X, microsoft sql, mysql, mysql workbench, OS X, sql, sql server, workbench