If you want a useful answer to this question you probably ought to start
from the assumption that the people you're talking to have no idea how SQL
Server handles cursors (or what the term even means in SQL Server) and why
they are considered slow. So tell us about cursors in SQL Server and we can
tell you about the things that look different in Oracle.

It may come down to something as simple as "cursors imply row by row
processing, which tends to be much slower than set-wise processing with
simple SQL" - that's a statement that is essentially true in either
environment. On the other hand you may have some completely different
comparison in mind when you pose your question.

--

Regards

Jonathan Lewis
http://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/all_postings

Author: Oracle Core (Apress 2011)
http://www.apress.com/9781430239543

news:4941cf9b-3831-4efe-9c8f-f13591b476d9@googlegroups.com...
| I've asked this at asp.net forum, but I think we have more gurus here to
get more educational, informative information about my confusion.
|
| I am new to Oracle, but not new to SQL Server and .NET application
development.  I think it is a general understanding that we should try to
avoid using cursors as much as possible at least with sql server, because
it just doesn't perform that well.
|
| But if we read any Oracle PL/SQL primer, I bet you will be reading about
cursors after cursors.
|
| So, is cursor simply the established practice of Oracle to get our data?
Is oracle cursor internally different from that of SQL Server such that it
doesn't cause any performance hit?
|
| Any thoughts? Thank you.