A common SQL habit is to use SELECT * on a query, because it’s tedious to list all the columns you need. Plus, sometimes those columns may change over time, so why not just do things the easy way? But ...

Updating fact rows inside a star schema set of tables is never a best practice. Even so, some organizations travel down this path. Consultants occasionally will go so far as to embrace the idea of ...

I know in Oracle you can use DBA_TAB_COLUMNS (or ALL_TAB_COLUMNS). My SQL Server knowledge is very rusty, but can't you use the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS view?