Condition within JOIN or WHERE

Question

Is there any difference (performance, best-practice, etc...) between putting a condition in the JOIN clause vs. the WHERE clause?

For example...

-- C         


        

Answer 1

Joins are quicker in my opinion when you have a larger table. It really isn't that much of a difference though especially if you are dealing with a rather smaller table. When I first learned about joins, i was told that conditions in joins are just like where clause conditions and that i could use them interchangeably if the where clause was specific about which table to do the condition on.