Template strings will be awesome for lots of purposes, but the given example is poorly conceived. The template in the original is separated from the bound colu

Template strings will be awesome for lots of purposes, but the given example is poorly conceived. The template in the original is separated from the bound columns in all manners except for order (e.g. change the name of your num_array variable and the SQL doesn't change at all). The second approach creates a tight coupling between the query and the source of the values (i.e. change a variable name and you must change the SQL source as well). If you imagine a more mature system where the SQL is either generated (or stored separately in hand-tuned files, or) you can see why this coupling is problematic. The specific gripe of "What if you want a new parameter near the beginning?" is not an new problem: it has been addressed in SQL clients by implementing named parameters. There is not a universal standard sadly but competent solutions exist for node and postgres (cf. https://github.com/bwestergard/node-postgres-named https://github.com/bwestergard/node-postgres-named).