I think Microsoft may actually be toeing the line on this one... It used to be okay to use *= or =* in the WHERE clause for OUTER JOIN, however, sometimes the use of such sometimes leads to ambiguous queries... I don't have an example handy, it's too early in the morning. You almost get the feeling that the standard may evolve to where none of the JOIN syntax can be in the WHERE clause. But to be honest, I don't see the INNER JOIN syntax in the WHERE clause going away anytime soon.

K. Brian Kelley

http://www.truthsolutions.com/

Author: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring

http://www.netimpress.com/shop/product.asp?ProductID=NI-SQL1