I see your point, and use "proper grammar" rules for readability in most of my code, as in:

Left(ColumnName, 1)

instead of

Left(ColumnName,1)

This is just more natural to me.

But at a certain point, that breaks down. Your example isn't SQL, so it's hard to judge SQL based upon it. I look at a select list much differently than parts of an address. I guess I use both leading and trailing commas depending upon situation. Trailing commas when the select list is simple (often w/o newlines for each column), and then at some point I'll switch to newlines and leading commas...especially when I'm not selecting:

select

column1,

column2,

column3

from...

but rather

select

, column1

, case when i.complete = '1901-01-01 01:00:00.000' then 'P'

when i.complete = '1901-01-01 02:00:00.000' then 'M'

when i.complete > '1901-01-01 02:00:00.000' then 'C'

else 'I' end

as status

, right('00' + cast(datepart(minute, isnull(s.datecommitted, z.lastupdate) - s.datecreated) as varchar), 2)

+ ':' + right('00' + cast(datepart(second, isnull(s.datecommitted, z.lastupdate) - s.datecreated) as varchar), 2)

as tot_duration

From...

(BTW, I can't seem to control tabs well in the code blocks on the forum)

The commas show my eye where each column to be returned starts.