I've been in that camp for much of my career, and yes, tooling matters.
As you suggest however, tooling for that workload is pretty rare. I want something that focuses on enhancing the database development experience: that understands that there are development workflows for database code which are well controlled and rigorous. So many database tools are focused on being system administrative aids first, or giving you features for directly interacting and <ack> altering the running state of the database and its server from the tool.
The best tool I found for what I do was targeted at Oracle: Allround Automation's PL/SQL Developer (https://www.allroundautomations.com/products/pl-sql-develope...). It's a development oriented tool that, at least last I used it, was focused on serious development work rather than administrative work. Now, I haven't used it in almost 20 years when last I did Oracle development... but I haven't found anything for PostgreSQL that has that thoughtfully implemented database developer centric feature set.
Today I muddle through with DataGrip. DataGrip has just enough of what I need that it's marginally better to work with than just a simple text editor... and also narrowly avoids some misfeatures as not to negate it's utility.
As you suggest however, tooling for that workload is pretty rare. I want something that focuses on enhancing the database development experience: that understands that there are development workflows for database code which are well controlled and rigorous. So many database tools are focused on being system administrative aids first, or giving you features for directly interacting and <ack> altering the running state of the database and its server from the tool.
The best tool I found for what I do was targeted at Oracle: Allround Automation's PL/SQL Developer (https://www.allroundautomations.com/products/pl-sql-develope...). It's a development oriented tool that, at least last I used it, was focused on serious development work rather than administrative work. Now, I haven't used it in almost 20 years when last I did Oracle development... but I haven't found anything for PostgreSQL that has that thoughtfully implemented database developer centric feature set.
Today I muddle through with DataGrip. DataGrip has just enough of what I need that it's marginally better to work with than just a simple text editor... and also narrowly avoids some misfeatures as not to negate it's utility.