To be clear, I'm not asking about the difference between an inner join and a union or something. I'm talking about two methods of joining tables. For example (using SAS EG 9.4):
proc sql;
create table want as
select [fields here]
from table1 t1 inner join table2 t2
on t1.key=t2.key
where [filters here];
quit;
vs.
proc sql;
create table want as
select [fields here]
from table1 as t1, table2 as t2
where t1.join_key=t2.join_key
and [filters here];
quit;