Join and Multiple where clauses: which is better??

Question

There was an argument between a colleague and I. He prefers building his views joining many tables with many where clause while I am cute with my join which is simpler and more understandable for me. So, it started an argument on which is a superior way of joining tables.
I will actually like to know we is faster and better: using JOINs or using multiple where clauses to retrieve values from multiple tables.?

Answer 1

Dave:
"Are we talking about the difference between Oracle Joins and ANSI Joins?
e.g.
Select d.dept_name, e.emp_name
from dept d, emp e
where d.dept_id = e.dept_id"
That is not really an "Oracle Join". That syntax works on just about every SQL database I have ever worked with. The (+) syntax for an outer join is Oracle specific, but some other databases use a similar style for outer joins (something like a.c += b.c or a.c *= b.c).
OP:
There are things you can do with the ANSI style syntax that either cannot be done, or cannot be done as easily, with Oracle's syntax. Most notably, outer joining one table to more than one other tables, and FULL OUTER joins.
Having said that, in my experience, both are rather rare occurrences, so I tend to stick to doing the jopins in the WHERE clause because that is what I am used to.
John