title: What is the difference between "FROM a, b" and "FROM a FULL OUTER JOIN b"?
body: <p>When working with data from multiple tables, there are a number of different ways that you can <code>JOIN</code> those tables, each of which alters the way matching columns are treated. You can also just pull the data from more the one table, i.e. <code>FROM [table a], [table b]</code>.</p>
  
  <p>This method seems to still join the tables in some way, and if I had to guess I'd say that this method is simply shorthand for <code>FULL OUTER JOIN</code>, but I'm sure there is a difference between the two.</p>
  
  <p>Is the difference simply that <code>FULL OUTER JOIN</code> is followed up by <code>ON [table 1 specific column] = [table 2 specific column]</code>, or is there something else going on?</p>