Easy, it's nothing personal. Select * with fetchrow_hashref will break in confusing ways if a column name is changed, but will survive columns being added. Of course performance will get progressively worse as columns get added even if they aren't being used. Regardless, select * is obviously a bad practice and fetchrow_hashref is just a band-aid that hides some of the badness. The DBAs at most jobs I've had would have hung me from the rafters if I used select * in production code.