On 8 Jun 2009 00:35:46 GMT, "David W. Fenton"
wrote:

A programmically-incremented PK is no less a surrogate key than an
Autonumber PK. It's just more work to make reliable.

That's true. But often one's desire to control the key means that one
is attributing some meaning to it.

There is really no need to programmatically increment your PK unless
you really do need the numbers to be incremented because you are
exposing them to the users (e.g., an invoice number). Most
properly-designed Access applications don't need that, so
Autonumbers are fine.

I agree. And even in the rare instance when we expose the PK to the
user, we call it something like a "reference number" and let them know
that it's merely a unique number, and not to worry about gaps.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com