Is there a [straightforward] way to order results *first*, *then* group by another column, with SQL?

Question

I see that in SQL, the GROUP BY has to precede ORDER BY expression. Does this imply that ordering is done after grouping discards identical rows/columns?

Because I s

Answer 1

SELECT DISTINCT a,b
FROM tbl t
WHERE b = (SELECT MAX(b) FROM tbl WHERE tbl.a = t.a);