Here are the notes I (Jim Kingdon) prepared for the Mayfly session at Simple Design & Testing in 2007. Because this is a very informal conference, these notes are only an approximate match to what we really talked about.

1. What is mayfly?
   • In-memory database written in Java (have tried it with java, would like to play with groovy, jruby, jython, etc)
2. What SQL syntax does it support?
   • Borrow syntax/semantics from other databases (the most widely supported one(s), usually, or the best). Especially where there is no common syntax which works on other databases, support more than one.
   • Aim to be compatible with production database (most well-developed with MySQL currently but open to contributions)
3. Why Yet Another SQL Implementation?
   • Generally faster than postgres, mysql, etc (at least, on the mayfly tests)
   • Roughly as fast as hypersonic (faster on some things, slower on others, aim to make mayfly faster)
   • Good error messages (see ErrorMessageTest)
   • Dumps which you can diff (see DumperTest)
   • Snapshot/restore (see IsolationTest for how to isolate tests with this)
4. Does it talk to Hibernate, etc?
   • Haven't tried the "etc", but see hibernate-demo.