Question

Would like to get a list of advantages and disadvantages of using Stored Procedures. The main advantage of SPs seems to be precompiled and an abstraction of data from the application. Give me your thoughts….

Answer 1

Correction: Whether they’re precompiled depends on the database. In SQL Server, for instance, they’re not. Stored procedures and parameterized SQL are both compiled before being run. A stored procedure can sometimes reuse an execution plan if a corresponding one exists…but so can parameterized SQL.

Edit: Here’s what MSDN says about it:

SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server version 7.0 incorporate a number of changes to statement processing that extend many of the performance benefits of stored procedures to all SQL statements. SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0 do not save a partially compiled plan for stored procedures when they are created. A stored procedure is compiled at execution time, like any other Transact-SQL statement. SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0 retain execution plans for all SQL statements in the procedure cache, not just stored procedure execution plans.