That's the old join syntax before ANSI SQL was designed. Except your operators look like "* =" and "= *" (without whitespace of course, blame HN's markdown parser). Sybase supported this syntax well into its version 15.x (maybe still in version 16?). And Sybase did not (does not?) support full outer joins.

It may seem simple on the surface, but once you get into complex queries, it's a horrible syntax, and it's easy to forget the relations between the tables, particularly with several tables (4+) involved.

As someone who has converted an old and large SQL code base from non-ANSI JOINs to ANSI JOINs, I am happy to see this style of syntax abandoned.