Comment by dragonwriter

> Second, this kind of reversed SQL (filter-first, select-last) is much easier to reason about than the original

Given that SQL clauses tend to be unambiguously terminated by the start of the next clause or the end of the statement, it surprises me that no engine has gone to accepting otherwise standard(-ish, as much as real DB vendor dialects are) SQL but without a mandated order of clauses.

And then combine that with dev tools that allow easy rearrangement of clauses, perhaps based on configured preferences so that you don’t even see the original if its not your preferred order, so that “Bob likes old-school SELECT FROM WHERE GROUP BY and Alice likes FROM WHERE GROUP BY SELECT” isn’t a problem.