[Sankozi]

But it has been explained many times from many angles.

* SELECT first makes autocomplete hard

* SELECT first is the only out of order clause in the SQL statement when you look at it from execution perspective

* you cannot use aliases defined in SELECT in following clauses

* in some places SELECT is pointless but it is still required (to keep things consistent?)

Probably many more.

[bvrmn]

> you cannot use aliases defined in SELECT in following clauses

Some DBs allow it or allow it partially. It's a major constant friction factor for me to do a guess work across different database systems.