Hugo Kornelis (11/27/2008)
What I was refering too is the lack of ROW_NUMBER() in SQL Server 2000. This means you'll either have to take your chance with IDENTITY, at the risk of gaps, as the author of this article did; or you have to use a correlated subquery to calculate the row number on the fly, which can result in dramatic performance as the amount of rows grows. Plus, the queries tend to get long and hard to understand.
Nope... in SQL Server 2000, just do a SELECT INTO a temp table with the IDENTITY function and the author's code works just fine without any difficulty for length or understanding.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.