Sorting by column number instead of name

You can use a column’s number (where the leftmost column is ‘1’) to indicate which column to base the sort on, instead of describing the column by its name.

Pro: If you think it’s likely you might change column names later, doing so won’t break this code.

Con: This will generally reduce readability of the query (It’s instantly clear what ‘ORDER BY Reputation’ means, while ‘ORDER BY 14’ requires some counting, probably with a finger on the screen.)

This query sorts result by the info in relative column position 3 from select statement instead of column name Reputation.

SELECT DisplayName, JoinDate, Reputation
FROM Users
ORDER BY 3

DisplayName | JoinDate | Reputation |
—— | —— | —— |
Community | 2008-09-15 | 1 |
Jarrod Dixon | 2008-10-03 | 11739 |
Geoff Dalgas | 2008-10-03 | 12567 |
Joel Spolsky | 2008-09-16 | 25784 |
Jeff Atwood | 2008-09-16 | 37628 |