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dangoodmanUT
DuckDB sql let's you do from first (thank god)

from first is correct, and way more ergonomic

croes
Nowadays with IDEs with auto complete. When SQL was developed it was easier if a query reflects natural language.
baq
Unsolicited career advice for juniors: read a SQL book over a weekend and read a book about the DBMS your job is using on the next weekend. You’ll be very surprised by how much senior folks don’t know or worse about databases.
niwtsol
This is fantastic advice. At the first startup I worked at, we had several issues with our MySQL dbs & ETL jobs (MyISAM table locks, slow updates, no replication) - I spent a few days just reading the relevant sections of "High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More" - and voila I had solid recommendations built on facts rather than random opinions people created over the years - put my career on an entirely different trajectory.
baq
Exactly what I had in mind, I've seen this first hand a couple times. It's a few days of reading which literally can change your life.
dondraper36
Ideally, also invest some time and work through the CMU Intro to Database Systems course by Andy Pavlo.

That's how I would have started if I had to start from scratch

jxjnskkzxxhx
Further advice about life: read, ask questions, dig deeper. You'll be very surprised how many people don't know the basics of anything.
KronisLV
Makes me think of PRQL: https://prql-lang.org/

I always found the idea of written SQL making you specify what you want to select before you know what you're selecting from odd.

croes
Wouldn't it be impossible to start with SELECT before the FROM and JOIN?