SQL join help for friend list

Question

I have three database tables: users, user_profiles and friends:

users

• id
• username

Answer 1

Falling back on bad habits (not using JOIN notation in the FROM clause):

SELECT a.id, a.username, a.full_name,
       b.id, b.username, b.full_name
  FROM friends AS f, users AS ua, users AS ub,
       user_profiles AS a, user_profiles AS b
 WHERE f.usera_id = ua.id
   AND f.userb_id = ub.id
   AND a.user_id  = ua.id
   AND b.user_id  = ub.id

The key point is using table aliases (all those 'AS' clauses) and referencing the same table more than once when necessary.

Someone could write this with JOIN instead.