>Me too, but I would add that this is not just a matter of personal preference, there is a clear advantage of doing so: If you use JOIN instead of WHERE to join the tables, it is easy to change your design and change from an inner join to an outer join, or vice-versa - just add or delete the LEFT keyword.

Good point

>Also, unlike using only a WHERE clause, with JOIN it is clearer which parts of the command are used to join the tables, and which parts specify additional filtering conditions (whatever remains in the WHERE clause).

Exactly, I find it irritating when I have to maintain an application and see this approach as it is extremely difficult to follow the path.