What MySQL honestly was never good at is giving good helpful error messages. Start with basics for example – The error message in case of syntax error gives you information about tokens near by but little details:
1 2 | mysql> select * from user oder by pwd; ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'by pwd' at line 1 |
It would be much better if MySQL would give error give exact position of error (with complex [...]

