"I would add that a hint is just that "a hint" not 100% of the time you will get what you asked for"
This seems to be a fairly common misconception. Even though they are called Hints, they are not mere suggestions to the optimizer. They OVERRIDE the optimizers default behavior--absolutely! There's no "maybe" about Hints. Which is why they should be used with care and only by those who understand the ramifications.
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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