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 statem

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.