There are several reasons to avoid using this method:
  -  It is optionally available only for result sets of type 
ResultSet.TYPE_FORWARD_ONLY. Database drivers will throw an exception if
  not supported.  
  -  The method can be expensive to execute as the database driver may need to fetch ahead one row to determine whether the current row is the last
  in the result set. The documentation of the method explicitly mentions this fact. 
 
  -  What "the cursor is on the last row" means for an empty 
ResultSet is unclear. Database drivers may return true or
  false in this case .  
ResultSet.next() is a good alternative to ResultSet.isLast() as it does not have the mentioned issues. It is always
supported and, as per specification, returns false for empty result sets.