Sticking With PostgreSQL and PHP from Marc – For Now
I was doing a lot of thinking about the Marc Liyanage builds of PHP and PostgreSQL and looking for alternatives - specifically MySQL as it's supported by Apple. Seems like a reasonable alternative if that's what I want to do, but I'm convinced now, more than before, that I can wait on Marc and see if he bows out or decides to keep things rolling, and here's the reason: Building PostgreSQL is easy. In fact, I can get it from another site with an OS X Installer package. That's not the problem. PHP is.
Marc packages a lot of third-party libraries with his PHP, and those are a lot more valuable to me than the most current database support. The version of PostgreSQL I have is fine. It works great. I don't need more. PHP is fine. If I find that I need a new database, then I'll look at MySQL as well and see how things shape up. But until I need a new database, I'm going to leave it as-is for now.
The trick will be building PHP from scratch with all the add-ins he's got. There is a build script on his support forum, and I could certainly start with that, and will, if I have to, but for now, I'm one minor release point behind Apple, and that's not a big enough reason to do it all myself.
I know I can get another PostgreSQL. I can get MySQL for sure. I can get and build PHP based on his script. That's a plan, if I need it. There's no reason to build a database from scratch, and there's no great need to have a different one now. We'll just sit tight and see how things play out in the months to come.