[dfsegoat]

You are right, I totally should have specified that this was a personal anecdote and it's specific to my experience and not a generalization:

I learned SQL within MySQL 5.4-5.6, strict mode was never enabled by default (on any install of mysql i've ever done for 5.4-5.6), so hopefully one can see how that sets someone up who is learning on the fly for long term failure (you are literally free of many constraints that exist in every other db engine).

I didn't learn how to write strict SQL from the ISO guide, I learned based on what mysql would "let me do" in order to produce the desired result. So indeed that is where I went wrong.