Sorting on the server or on the client?

Question

I had a discussion with a colleague at work, it was about SQL queries and sorting. He has the opinion that you should let the server do any sorting before returning the rows

Answer 1

If the sorting is just cosmetic and the client is getting the entire set of data I would tend to let the client handle it as it is about the presentation.

Also, say in a grid, you may have to implement the sorting in the client anyway as the user may change the ordering by clicking a column header (don't want to have to ask the server to retrieve all the information again)