Postgres join not respecting outer where clause - postgresql

Question

In SQL Server, I know for sure that the following query;
SELECT things.*
FROM things
LEFT OUTER JOIN (
SELECT thingreadings.thingid, reading
FROM thingreadings
INNER JOIN things on thingreadings.thingid = things.id
ORDER BY reading DESC LIMIT 1) AS readings
ON things.id = readings.thingid
WHERE things.id = '1'
Would join against thingreadings only once the WHERE id = 1 had restricted the record set down. It left joins against just one row. However in order for performance to be acceptable in postgres, I have to add the WHERE id= 1 to the INNER JOIN things on thingreadings.thingid = things.id line too.
This isn't ideal; is it possible to force postgres to know that what I am joining against is only one row without explicitly adding the WHERE clauses everywhere?
An example of this problem can be seen here;
I am trying to recreate the following query in a more efficient way;
SELECT things.id, things.name,
(SELECT thingreadings.id FROM thingreadings WHERE thingid = things.id ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1),
(SELECT thingreadings.reading FROM thingreadings WHERE thingid = things.id ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1)
FROM things
WHERE id IN (1,2)
http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/a172c/2

Answer 1

Not really sure why you did all that work. Isn't the inner query enough?
SELECT t.*
FROM thingreadings tr
INNER JOIN things t on tr.thingid = t.id AND t.id = '1'
ORDER BY tr.reading DESC
LIMIT 1;
sqlfiddle demo
When you want to select the latest value for each thingID, you can do:
SELECT t.*,a.reading
FROM things t
INNER JOIN (
SELECT t1.*
FROM thingreadings t1
LEFT JOIN thingreadings t2
ON (t1.thingid = t2.thingid AND t1.reading < t2.reading)
WHERE t2.thingid IS NULL
) a ON a.thingid = t.id
sqlfiddle demo
The derived table gets you the record with the most recent reading, then the JOIN gets you the information from things table for that record.

Answer 2

The where clause in SQL applies to the result set you're requesting, NOT to the join.
What your code is NOT saying: "do this join only for the ID of 1"...
What your code IS saying: "do this join, then pull records out of it where the ID is 1"...
This is why you need the inner where clause. Incidentally, I also think Filipe is right about the unnecessary code.