[arh68]

I like your second version. My own style, still evolving, is to write more lines and align further left

  select
    a.foo
    , b.bar
    , g.zed
  from alpha a
  inner join beta b on
    b.alpha_id = a.id
    and b.thing = a.another
  left  join gamma g on
    g.beta_id = b.id
  where
    a.val > 1
    and b.col < 2
  order by
    a.foo

[mulmen]

I like the idea in general, I have tried something similar before. But I've never understood the appeal of leading commas. It screws up your alignment and just looks messy.

[vericiab]

Personally I like leading commas for the ergonomics rather than the aesthetics. When I'm developing or debugging a query the first column is typically the one I'm least likely to change. I tend to build up the query from there, so the last columns are the ones I'm most likely to change or to comment out. Plus I find it easiest to interpret the result set when columns that I'm using as a temporary reference are at the very end of the row. So for the way I work, I've found that with leading commas I don't have to do as much futzing about with commas.

My job involves a lot of ELT pipelines though and the queries I'm writing are often to transform a client's data from whatever ill-conceived data model they've been using to a standard data model that we use for all clients. Those queries require a lot more "detective work" to get right than the queries that run against our standard data model. If I was just writing queries against the standard, I'm not sure I'd spend enough time developing/debugging to really notice any ergonomic benefit.

[mulmen]

I hear this argument all the time but it makes no sense. Leading commas only help you comment out the last line. Any comma arrangement allows you to comment any intermediate line. It’s sacrificing readability and aesthetics for a tiny benefit on one row.

[arh68]

likelihood of commenting out last N lines >> .. first N lines

What happens is I want to comment out a join entirely, and all its columns. I rarely find myself commenting out the first column. I'd prefer trailing commas on every element, where allowed, to be sure! but leading isn't so bad once I got used to it.

Plus to scan for a missing leading comma is a linear (literally!) search whereas [missing] trailing commas don't line up.

[ZeroClickOk]

You can easily add remove columns like this, just removing the entire line. If you add the comma the traditional way, you will change 2 lines (the end of previous line with comma, and the new line). It's nice for maintenance and diff'ing

[mulmen]

That is only true of the first or last line.

  col1,
  col2,
  col3

  col1
  ,col2
  ,col3

You can remove col2 from either of those examples and have valid syntax.