Dev studio vs Abap workbench WD Tools

[Former Member]

Hello,

I would like to know more about the slideware "Putting it All Together - Business Programming with SAP's J2EE World" and the slide "web dynpro across multiple plaforms".

This slide represents two different ways to develop WD's:

+ on the 630 side with devlopper studio (eclipse framework ?)

+ on the 640 side with Abap workbench

The platform independent metadata is spred on J2EE and ABAP stack WD runtimes

Does it mean that we will be able to develop WD's in the ABAP Workbench and then deploy them in WD containers on J2EE severs ? And the other way round ? (from Eclipse to BSP based container)

Does it also mean that the WD devloppers can use the ABAP way of maintaining versions and transporting (deploy to J2EE ?) instead of using DTR & CBS ?

Thank you for your answers.

Christian.

[Former Member]

Hello Christian,

You are right saying there are "two different ways to develop" Web Dynpro applications:

- Web AS 6.30 and later releases (Web AS 6.40/SAP NetWeaver '04) comes with the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, based on Eclipse, including the Web Dynpro for Java perspective.

- Web AS 6.40 comes with the ABAP stack, too. We extended the ABAP Workbench so that you build the application and run it.

It means with 6.40 we support both, the Java and the ABAP world. But both have different runtime environments.

The metadata itself are platform independent, that is correct. But as soon as you "touch" the code, e.g. if you create an event, you need to have Java or ABAP code, which can be understanded by the specific runtime (ABAP or Java). This is not platform independent.

In order to answer your questions:

It is not possible to create a Web Dynpro application with the ABAP Workbench and then deploy it on the J2EE server and the other way around.

The Java stack comes with a full Java Development Infrastructure for maintaining versions and deploying to J2EE and working with a group of developers on the same code base (DTR and CBS as you mentioned). The ABAP way of maintaining and transporting can not be used for Java-based applications.

Best regards,

Karin

[Former Member]

Hello Karin,

First, thank you for your quick answer.

When you write that the metadata is platform independent, does it also mean that it will be possible to migrate it in its metadata form from a stack to an other and then re-develop the event handling in the target language. In other words: is the metadata re-usable ?

Best regards,

Christian

[Former Member]

Hi Christian,

The metadate are widely the same in both ABAP and Java. But at this point of time we do not have a proof of concept for a migration from one world to the other, tools are not planned yet.

Best regards,

Karin