<Lt> and <Gt> CAML Mess!

Ok, CAML SharePoint, we had came to love (and hate). The darn thing still surprises me even after few years of regular use! Okay maybe I am not technical enough, let me explain, and you judge!

Was dealing with some date/time checking, and came came across the need to compare some dates, the initial query as following:

<Where>
  <Lt>
    <FieldRef Name='StartDate' />
    <Value Type='DateTime' IncludeTimeValue='true'>{0}</Value>
  </Lt>
</Where>

Okay, this executes and give me all data where with StartDate < {0}. As expected, so far. Now, the business logic changed, I would need to get the opposites instead: {0} < StartDate, so, I did some small logical change on the xml by reversing the FiedRef and Value tags’ position:

<Where>
  <Lt>
    <Value Type='DateTime' IncludeTimeValue='true'>{0}</Value>
    <FieldRef Name='StartDate' />
  </Lt>
</Where>

Logic? No!!! To my horror, this query gives me the exact same result as previous!!!!  I am shooting myself in the foot, I should just use Gt instead of changing the order… Anyway, now only I learnt (after 5 years using CAML), that <Lt> and <Gt> does not honors the order of the elements inside!!! It will always return FieldRef Gt/Lt Value. *Ouch*

Nice catch CAML, nice one.

Back from SharePoint Conference 2010, Las Vegas

And the big news is… I lost $50 to the slot machines.

BTW, nice conference, lots of great people presenting, socialized with quite some participants there that have very huge SharePoint deployments. Developers and end-users a likes, SharePoint ‘culture’ in US is definitely much more mature then here in Asia. Saw quite good custom solutions at the partners’ pavilions. Quite a good experience for this trip.

SharePoint 2010 will be a big release when it is out. Too much to talk about in a blog post. Anyway, the feature that caught my imagination the most is the Client OM and REST interface for development. More to blog about when i get the beta in November.

...and today, we start anew

I was a follower, happily following tons of tech and non-tech related forums, discussions, blogs, wikis, tweets. So many years of my life, I had been silence. A good virtue, I think, at least I observed and I learnt.  And years passes by, that I sink, I sink, I sank and get unnoticed. Friends faded into my now fuzzy memory, opportunity passes me by, and most of all, I felt a sense of losses. Life today, is not what I had dreamt some 20 years ago. Where is the excitement? and where is the meaning?

So, today, I had decided that I have had enough. Today, I start again. Rumbling the rumbles and saying out the says.

Dear Internet (and everyone that matters/doesn’t matter, uh…whichever)! I have had enough! Here I come, to add to the mess of the information overflowing age!

Cheers!

-BTW, finally get Live Writer for my 64-bit Windows 2008. Had missed this tools so much since Live decided to not support it on 64bit platform. Now the support is back, yeap, 64-bit is the future!