Some good points in article. There are some things that may need more attention. 1) Update from another table is not safe as it should be (in case of multiple values, final value will be sort of random) 2) Schemas as namespace separators (grouping tables inside database) 3) Extern join syntax in Oracle is actually more vulnerable (in case of error in multicolumn syntax it fallbacks to normal join). So, it's not better or easier - it is just created before standard JOIN existed. 4) Crucial difference how buffer-vs-filesystem cache works 5) Miss of plan stability - no solution out of the box in standard installation 6) Batch operation (in)efficiency 7) Pros/cons in undo/rollback handling [likely some more that can't think of right now]