[mywittyname]

Dovetails are easy if you have the right tools. But that's a $100 minimum investment, so you're going to want to have multiple projects in the works to really make the investment worth it. Doing them by hand is completely possible, it just takes a lot of time and practice to get right. Mortise and tendon or lap joints are much easier to do with hand tools and are a staple of classic wood working. Plus they are really forgiving. Took off too little: grab some sand paper; take off too much: add more glue and sawdust.

For most projects, glue & screw is fine. It's cheap and low effort. I use it in every utility project because speed > looks. I've never tested it, but I'm pretty sure that connection would be stronger than the wood itself.