From: request@ifneeded.com   
      
   Daniel Roy wrote:   
      
   >>What happens if you throw in a hint like FIRST_ROWS?  Would the   
   >>optimizer accept the hint ?   
   >   
   >   
   > If you throw any hint to a query (except "RULE"), cost-based   
   > optimizing is triggered. In that case, since you probably don't have   
   > any stats for your tables, Oracle will try to make up these stats by   
   > itself, using criteria such as number of extents used by a table (to   
   > estimate its size), ... Oracle usually does a decent job at making up   
   > these stats (from what I've seen), but of course it would be much   
   > better to have real up-to-date stats if you intend to use CBO for some   
   > queries. If you decide to go that route (use hints and gather the   
   > stats), make sure that OPTIMIZER_MODE (for the instance running   
   > Siebel) is RULE (and not CHOOSE), or otherwise CBO will be used for   
   > all the queries (including the ones from the Siebel application)   
   > running against the database, and your Siebel TAM will slap your   
   > fingers.   
   >   
   > Daniel Roy   
   > IBM   
   > Siebel/Oracle Consultant   
      
      
   Thanks for the headsup, Roy.  I think you've given me a couple of   
   questions that I need to discuss with the DBA.   
      
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