Ask HN: Good OS X data modeling software? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Good OS X data modeling software?

9 pointssant0sk120 comments

I'm looking for something to help me visualize my data structure design. I've done the requisite Googling and haven't come up with much besides OmniGraffle, which is a little pricey ($100 US for Standard Edition) and not built specifically for this purpose.

In the old days I'd just fire up M$ Access and use that to show table names, attributes, and relationships. Currently I've resorted to pen & paper.

Anybody solved this problem before? HN community advice is always welcomed and appreciated!

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I usually just use pen and paper (my workflow works best this way), I also like OmniGraffle, but here are some others to check out:

http://www.aquafold.com/

http://www.sqlpower.ca/page/architect

http://www.dbvis.com/products/dbvis/

http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect

ERD Stencil (Rails) for Omnigraffle: http://graffletopia.com/stencils/318

You could do your modelling in xCode using a core data model. Just create a Core Data application in Xcode and play with the model file.

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/coredata.html http://developer.apple.com/macosx/images/CoreDataSimpleDataM...

This could work, thanks I'll look into it!

I vote for pencil and paper ;-) you can erase! I do this and then directly create the sql in phpmyadmin or something similar -- for most of projects which are small.

you can erase!

And you're not limited by the preconceived notions of the software you're using. It's also surprising how quickly you learn something when you have to draw and erase it 5 times (vs. entering some data into someone else's app.)

for most of projects which are small

Large projects too. They're just a lot of small projects stuck together.

also I would like to point out that I love paper. I love notebooks with my daily notes in them. I love print-outs. I love storing paper. I love seeing my (ugly)handwriting in my notes. It makes me remember things and makes me understand faster than looking at the fonts in my monitor.

I use a whiteboard and an 8 megapixel camera for backups. ;-)

I have tried using whiteboard. But i kept on erasing stuff and had no permanent records. My life was a mess when i used it (for about a week). so i went back to pencil and paper ;)

your 8 megapixel camera solves my problem. But i don't have one.

I recommend Graphviz, which is free:

http://www.pixelglow.com/graphviz/

DIA: http://live.gnome.org/Dia/

I think the darwinports page for it is currently down (actually the entire server may be down), but regardless dia rules! Saves as svg so it's really easy to write reverse engineering tools for your code base/database. When I say really easy I mean possible.

SQLEditor works very well, although a single license costs $79. Try out the trial. One awesome thing about it that it can parse a SQL dump of your existing database and create a visual model of the structure.

http://www.malcolmhardie.com/sqleditor/

You sir, are my new best friend.

I know this is not as advance as you would like, but I use Open Office Draw for my process flows and DB models and stuff.

You may want to glance at 'R' which is an open source alternative to 'S'. http://www.r-project.org/

'R' is used to manipulate data and graphically display the results. I've never used it myself, but I know it's used in my University's Computer Science department.

as mcormier said, you can use Xcode's data modeling. There is also Umbrello, which either requires X11 or finding a recent native OS X build.

i don't have any experience with it, but also found ArgoUML (http://argouml.tigris.org/)

Visualization is for sissies. Directly editing SQL scrips in TextMate is the only way to go. :)

handing sql scripts over to clients in the first stage of planning development is a great idea :)

so easy to read!

This is probably outside of your pricerange, but have you looked at Wolfram's Mathematica? I find it invaluable for all sorts of statistical data modeling.

I'm not a techy but www.thebrain.com is the coolest visualization tool i've found and its free...but may not apply for what you're looking fore

Java UML tool like ArgoUML?

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