Comment by cryptonector
5 hours ago
This is not relevant to GP's point. This is a separate topic, which... I don't really care, but I know a lot of people want to be able to write SQL as you suggest, and it's not hard to implement, so, sure.
Though, I think it might have to be table sources, then `SELECT`, then `WHERE`, then ... because you might want to refer to output columns in the `WHERE` clause.
WHERE clauses are pushed down into the query planner before the SELECT list is processed, that’s why HAVING exists.
The logical order, in full, is:
FROM
WHERE/JOIN (you can join using WHERE clauses and do FROM a,b still)
SELECT
HAVING
Ideally, it needs to be "from", then arbitrary number of something like `let` statements that can introduce new variables, maybe interspersed with where-s, and then finally "select".
"select" can also be replaced with annotations, something like: `from table_1 t1 let t1.column_1 as @output_1 where ...` and then just collect all the @-annotated variables.
I need to write a lot of SQL, and it's so clumsy. Every time I need a CTE, I have to look into the documentation for the exact syntax.