A report from OpenSQLCamp

Also, as soon as joins turn up, you're into hell. WITH makes things a bit simpler (assuming your database supports it), but encoding knowledge of the frankly somewhat bizarre tree-walk you have to do in order to figure out what names your columns and tables have got in *this* particular subclause is not very pleasant.

But that's not why I hate SQL, at all. That's just icing on the bad-tasting cake.