Adding to Joe's statements, the portability of standard-SQL skill set of developers plays an important role in determining a major portion of project costs. Also, not forgetting the need to...

BEWARE...these short cuts are NOT either ISO SQL standard or ANSI SQL.

This is going back in time BEFORE the ISO SQL standard was created.

Shortcuts create long term pains!!!

Suggest you use INFORMATION_SCHEMA views to search for your columns. Reason: it is part of the ISO SQL Standard offering and suitable across heterogeneous systems, and, more importantly, much...