Alternate way to find first occurrence in a column

Just thought I'd throw this out there.

The typical way to find the first occurrence of an item in a table is to use an anchored cell formula copied to the cells below. This is an alternate technique that doesn't use the anchored cell, but by matching rows. It references the entire column and the current row, and does not care about placement.

I've found that the use of categories, filters, and sorting can break the anchored cell method. The matching row method seems to survive these issues.

So, why do things differently? As has been noted (see also https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251836786), the anchored cell method can break if the table is sorted.

I usually use the row number instead of the number 1, which is useful for indexing for simulating a pivot table. The Row column is used as an index into the main data table to return the Item. Ultimately, I'll hide the Row column.