David Johnson wrote:

>
> To be fair, a lot depends on your shop.
>
> In our shop, most of our programmers (about 150 to 200) get confused if
> you use the full syntax.

I'm less of an authoritarian than my spouse, the BBW, but in this case,
I'd suggest it's time for some re-education in the shop. If it were
just aesthetics, or even aesthetics and performance, then there might be
some argument. The problem is that the results of mixed-syntax queries
are non-intuitive - which is to say not what the programmer expected.

> But then, most of them are COBOL'ers

Then the full syntax ought to please them - it's nearly as wordy as
COBOL. And, contrary to general opinion, even COBOL programmers can
learn new tricks. A good book on clicker-training for dogs is a
starting place.

> On the occasions that we do see outer joins, we
> see a lot of your last example ("terrible").

I guess banning outer joins is an alternative...


Cheers,


Ann