Will ABAP be Obsolete? Will JAVA Replace ABAP?

[Former Member]

Hi experts see this once and tell me whether its true or false?

Will ABAP be Obsolete? Will JAVA Replace ABAP?

You should have heard this rumours more than once.

The story goes like this:

Well the sad news is that SAP is integrating ABAP with JAVA.  So in near future ABAP will be obsolete and JAVA will be in.   Then the field will be so much populated by java programmers that it will be going to be the
end to ABAPers as JAVApers programmers will be having more value because of their Java experience.
So I think now we should start making move to Jave, at least to fight in the market even if we can't dominate it.

or

Heard some rumours here and there that the eventual plan for SAP is to phrase out ABAP programming? In another word, in a few years time, ABAPers will be redundant.   How true is that?? Care to comment ??

or

I have just started my journey into ABAP programming, but I am being discouraged by some people who say, that ABAP is gonna be transitioned out and will be replaced by something else. Just wanted to know how true this is and if I should continue on the track I have taken, cause I dont wanna regret my decision later.

Some response to the above worries :-

This rumours have been around for a couple of years. In the past many programming languages have also become obsolete. 
Why waste time worrying about this?  I think abapers should spend more times to learn other sap modules to enhance their value.

ABAP can't die because its the easiest development tool . It can be easily seen that if you see development cost ABAP development can be completed in less time as compared to Java.  And SAP is not stopping ABAP but just given an option to develop in java. However it will be good for ABAP Developers to learn java. 

ABAP is not a replacement for any thing and at the same time no other language is a replacement for ABAP.  FYI, ABAP is no more an ABAP/4. It is widely extended with the introduction of Web Application Server starting from release WAS 620.

In Object Oriented Paradigm ABAP is the only langauge that goes very near to all the properties of OOP concepts even compared to JAVA and C++ starting from release WAS 630. You can developed and extend web applications using ABAP. It is much much more than what we see from R/2 and R/3 3.X releases...

There is nothing to worry about it. Yes SAP is introducing J2EE platform as an alternate to make an implementation faster as in the market there are many JAVA developers compared to ABAP resources.

More than this, ABAP is the SAP proprietary language. Except R/3 kernel, every application/transaction including BASIS is written in ABAP. I don't think SAP is that foolish to replace ABAP with some thing else.Look at the development news in SAP AG official web site for more info. One might need to know Java and JSP for developing mySAP portals but starting from SAP NetWeaver (which is planned to be released officially by the next quarter this year) you can developed 
heterogeneous portals using ABAP itself...

Hope the above clarifies how ABAP is moving a head in the programming era.

Thanks

Vamsi

[jameskkchau]

I believe the business processes are long overdue for modernization. Basis had been ideal for physical abstraction allowing very dynamic capabilities to enable fast modernization of business processes. Web has many limitations that must be overcome as soon as

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

Not only was this discussed ad nauseam but the contents you posted here are a copy paste from here: SAP ABAP BASIC CONCEPTS AND PROGRAMMING - Home

Please read the as you have broken more than one with this post.

Thanks,

SCN team

[former_member190778 · Accepted solution]

Correct! Copied Content!

[former_member207541 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

as the whole content is copied, title included, why is it still displayed? Or, at least, why its author is not obliged to correct its original posting by including the information on the source ('original article by, copied from etc.'). An indication to read the rules of engagement seems to me a to soft reaction...

Regards,

H.

[matt · Accepted solution]

Maybe the ridicule attracted by the post is consider punishment enough.

[matthias_kasig2]

I have a feeling that it's mereley vice versa. Eg: wd abap seems to replace wd java. In the introduction of webdynpro it was all java. Now, like 10 years later we get a lot of wd abap. We experience this right now in the ess scenarios, where we used to have wdj but now more and more abap.

Just a guess, mk

[matt]

WD Java is, I believe, not being developed further. All the fun stuff is in WD ABAP.

[joao_sousa2]

Ever worked with WD Java? It's not bad, and since the concepts are basically the same as WD ABAP it's very easy to get into (frameworks are harder to learn then programming languages).

The problem with WD Java was that on one hand it required an infernal landscape, one that brought little value to the organizations since SAP Portal was always ... weak (let's leave it at that). Oh, and it used Netweaver Developer Studio, which I have to say is one of the worse IDEs I ever used.

On the other hand SAP expected Java to bring in thousands of developers in order to bring down cost .... it didn't happen. Why? Basically you couldn't do anything with just Java, since it relied on the ABAP backend for relevant data, and like I started by saying the hard thing isn't to learn the language but to learn the framework. A Java programmer who didn't know Webdynpro would be almost starting from scratch.

And so it died.... (well not dead, but connected to life support).

[stephenjohannes]

Not this discussion or topic again.  Could you really please search before posting, because this question has already been asked/discussed to death?

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Even if ABAP is replaced by JAVA at some point, at the bottom of the business logic there will always be ABAP Macros. Lots.

There's no escaping the legacy systems.

[former_member184657]

Nobody told you about this yet?

pk

[Former Member]

Hi Vamshi,

I dont think SAP will replace ABAP with JAVA as we can see all SAP new technologies like SAP HANA SAP, trying extend these these technologies on ABAP platform also like ABAP Managed database (AMDB),External View, ABAP on Ellipse like.

We can take case webdynpro, SAP started Webdynpro on JAVA first then it released WEBDYPRO on ABAP in this case why SAP released ABAP version if that the case.

ABAP the language will always rock

Thanks & Regards,

Arun 

[jogeswararao_kavala]

Hi Vamshi,

The content is suitable to be posted as a Blog.

Jogeswara Rao K

[Former Member]

The content is taken from erpgreat dot com. It is not suitable to be pasted on copyright infringement grounds.

[jogeswararao_kavala]

Thank you Manish,

I didn't know this.

[Former Member]

What do you think?

[matt]

I think I saw the text of this rumour here from 2007. SAP Information

However it is absolutely true.