Assuming you're joining on columns with no duplicates, which is a very common case:
An inner join of A and B gives the result of A intersect B, i.e. the inner part of a Venn diagram intersection.
An outer join of A and B gives the results of A union B, i.e. the outer parts of a Venn diagram union.
Examples
Suppose you have two tables, with a single column each, and data as follows:
A B
- -
1 3
2 4
3 5
4 6
Note that (1,2) are unique to A, (3,4) are common, and (5,6) are unique to B.
Inner join
An inner join using either of the equivalent queries gives the intersection of the two tables, i.e. the two rows they have in common.
select * from a INNER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
select a.*, b.* from a,b where a.a = b.b;
a | b
--+--
3 | 3
4 | 4
Left outer join
A left outer join will give all rows in A, plus any common rows in B.
select * from a LEFT OUTER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
select a.*, b.* from a,b where a.a = b.b(+);
a | b
--+-----
1 | null
2 | null
3 | 3
4 | 4
Right outer join
A right outer join will give all rows in B, plus any common rows in A.
select * from a RIGHT OUTER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
select a.*, b.* from a,b where a.a(+) = b.b;
a | b
-----+----
3 | 3
4 | 4
null | 5
null | 6
Full outer join
A full outer join will give you the union of A and B, i.e. all the rows in A and all the rows in B. If something in A doesn't have a corresponding datum in B, then the B portion is null, and vice versa.
select * from a FULL OUTER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
a | b
-----+-----
1 | null
2 | null
3 | 3
4 | 4
null | 6
null | 5
Best Answer
db:migrate runs (single) migrations that have not run yet.
db:create creates the database
db:drop deletes the database
db:schema:load creates tables and columns within the existing database following schema.rb. This will delete existing data.
db:setup does db:create, db:schema:load, db:seed
db:reset does db:drop, db:setup
db:migrate:reset does db:drop, db:create, db:migrate
Typically, you would use db:migrate after having made changes to the schema via new migration files (this makes sense only if there is already data in the database). db:schema:load is used when you setup a new instance of your app.
I hope that helps.
UPDATE for rails 3.2.12:
I just checked the source and the dependencies are like this now:
db:create creates the database for the current env
db:create:all creates the databases for all envs
db:drop drops the database for the current env
db:drop:all drops the databases for all envs
db:migrate runs migrations for the current env that have not run yet
db:migrate:up runs one specific migration
db:migrate:down rolls back one specific migration
db:migrate:status shows current migration status
db:rollback rolls back the last migration
db:forward advances the current schema version to the next one
db:seed (only) runs the db/seed.rb file
db:schema:load loads the schema into the current env's database
db:schema:dump dumps the current env's schema (and seems to create the db as well)
db:setup runs db:schema:load, db:seed
db:reset runs db:drop db:setup
db:migrate:redo runs (db:migrate:down db:migrate:up) or (db:rollback db:migrate) depending on the specified migration
db:migrate:reset runs db:drop db:create db:migrate
For further information please have a look at https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v3.2.12/activerecord/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake (for Rails 3.2.x) and https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v4.0.5/activerecord/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake (for Rails 4.0.x)