Okay, so another reasons are: that 1) it's terribly difficult to parse and 2) on large tables, messing with query planner is actually more work than just specif

Okay, so another reasons are: that 1) it's terribly difficult to parse and 2) on large tables, messing with query planner is actually more work than just specifying the algorithm you'd like to use. Also: 3) yes, there is an SQL standard, but generally if you're writing any application that uses SQL, you're going to end up writing code for a specific database or use an ORM.