What's the point of a stored procedure?

Question

Are they useful for anything outside of a database administrator? If I understand them correctly it\'s merely queries that can be saved directly into MySQL, so it\'d be useless

Answer 1

It is easier to performance tune code in stored procs than what most ORMs create. It is easier to use stored procs when there are multiple applications that access the same database and might need to do the same things. It is far easier to refactor databases when all code is in stored procs because you can easily see where the changes need to be made. It is easier to use stored procs for things that don't normally hook up to ORMs like SSIS or reporting applications. Using stored procs you can limit access to only what the proc does and not allow access directly to the tables or views. This is critical in enforcing internal controls on financial data for instance and helps prevent fraud.

I've written complex procs that were well over a 1000 lines long. Try getting an ORM to write that kind of SQL. Then try to get it so that it will run without timing out.