The inability to put inline comments in to describe the purpose of table columns I don't have a problem with - such metadata IMO should instead be directly attached to the table column as an ms_description extended property.

Although it would be really nice if the syntax to add such extended properties when creating/altering tables were as "in-line" as your comment example, rather than having to issue separate sp_addextendedproperty s-proc calls for each one...

Which leads into a 2nd point: It's not so much MS-SQL that needs to be asked "Why?" - but more so why SQL ANSI standard has this perceived inconsistency.

For me I'm OK with the different treatment of tables vs. Other database objects such as views, s-price, functions, etc. - tables have one significant difference from these other object types in that they (potentially) contain DATA whereas these other object types are essentially just "code items", thus changing the structure of a table has potential for data-loss.

Adding a column is not too risky, but altering existing columns on a table can have unintended consequences.

Having different syntax for these operations helps to protect the data and ensure existing data is handled appropriately.

Piquet