Cursor verus while loop - what are the advantages/disadvantages of cursors?

Question

Is it a good idea to use while loop instead of a cursor? What are the advantages/disadvantages of cursors?

Answer 1

I'm following this bit of advice:

[...] which is better: cursors or WHILE loops? Again, it really depends on your situation. I almost always use a cursor to loop through records when necessary. The cursor format is a little more intuitive for me and, since I just use the constructs to loop through the result set once, it makes sense to use the FAST_FORWARD cursor. Remember that the type of cursor you use will have a huge impact on the performance of your looping construct.

— Tim Chapman in Comparing cursor vs. WHILE loop performance in SQL Server 2008

The linked article contains simple examples of how to implement each approach.