Which are the SQL improvements you are waiting for?

Question

Dealing with SQL shows us some limitations and gives us an opportunity to imagine what could be.

Which improvements to SQL are you waiting for? Which would you put on t

Answer 1

Ability to define columns based on other columns ad infinitum (including disambiguation).

This is a contrived example and not a real world case, but I think you'll see where I'm going:

SELECT LTRIM(t1.a) AS [a.new]
    ,REPLICATE(' ', 20 - LEN([a.new])) + [a.new] AS [a.conformed]
    ,LEN([a.conformed]) as [a.length]
FROM t1
INNER JOIN TABLE t2
    ON [a.new] = t2.a
ORDER BY [a.new]

instead of:

SELECT LTRIM(t1.a) AS [a.new]
    ,REPLICATE(' ', 20 - LEN(LTRIM(t1.a))) + LTRIM(t1.a) AS [a.conformed]
    ,LEN(REPLICATE(' ', 20 - LEN(LTRIM(t1.a))) + LTRIM(t1.a)) as [a.length]
FROM t1
INNER JOIN TABLE t2
    ON LTRIM(t1.a) = t2.a
ORDER BY LTRIM(t1.a)

Right now, in SQL Server 2005 and up, I would use a CTE and build up in successive layers.