DD,

I've sort of been following this thread and the question of whether or not an auto-increment column is a major improvement or not.

First, I think whether or not it's major is simply a matter of perspective. What one person sees as being a big deal, may seem trivial to someone else.

Second, and I think more importantly, no one has touched on what this allows the developer to do that he/she couldn't before.

The main reaction of folks who already have routines to handle the generation of PKs seems to be, "Well, I already have something like that and I see no reason to change to using an auto-increment column."

I think that the folks that have expressed might want to have some second thoughts. Let's assume that this is the case, and, after the release of Toledo, developers are porting 7.0 applications to it. Let's, however, consider another possibility: That the application may in the near future need to be up-sized to SQL Server 7.0 or 2000.

Both of those support identity columns. Identity columns are essentially the same thing as an auto-increment. Further, I think it's a reasonable guess to make that the Upsizing Wizard will be modified so that auto-increment columns map to SQL Server indentity columns.

Wouldn't make a good deal of sense to dump the PK generation routines in favor of an auto-increment? If one did, not only would there be less code to currently maintain, but also the upsizing process would more seamless and less modifications required, especially if the developer had the good sense design against the Fox tables as if they were SQL Server tables.

That's my take.