APEX

For a report region, how does HTML DB pagination work if the query has a first_rows hint in it?

The pagination scheme I am talking about is the "simplest" one, Rows X to Y with next/previous links.

Suppose I have a large resultset (in the thousands). first_rows is designed to optimize the execution plan for fast response time. So I get my first few pages fast. As successive pages are fetched, it would start to get slower and slower, right? Especially because the HTML DB engine fetches all the rows for every page over and over again and discards all the rows before the currently displayed window.

So, given a large resultset, is it advisable to first_rows hint the query?

Heck forget the size of the resultset, wouldnt it make sense to first_rows hint all queries since interactive web apps always fast response to queries?

Can someone please explain how all this works?

Thanks