[dykesa]

I 100% disagree with you. How is having even more conditions in the where clause helpful? It makes it very easy to accidentally cross join (Oops, I forgot to actually join that table because I have 40 lines in my where clause).

Also, I believe that in SQL Server, the old (ANSI 89) style of joining (joining in the where clause) was deprecated and isn't optimized anymore so you'll get crap performance because all of the tables are actually cross joined before the filtering happens. The explicit join forces relationships to be accounted for first which can help keep the amount of memory needed down.

One last thing, how long does it take to adapt a new standard? The explicit join has been the standard since 1992.