IS ABAP FINISHED

[Former Member]

HI TO ALL SDNERS,

I HAVE HEARD IN THE NEAR FUTURE SAP IS GOING TO COMPLETLY REPLACE ABAP WITH JAVA.DUE SAP's NETWEAVER push and SOA (service-oriented architecture) strategy .

IS THAT TRUE

I HAVE SPEND ENDLESS HOURS FOR LEARNING ABAP AND

ABAP OBJECTS WILL THAT BE A WASTE?

[Former Member]

The Source Code of all the modules are written in ABAP ( Not in JAVA) and it is not possible for SAP to change those source code from ABAP to JAVA. So ABAP is never going to DIE as long as SAP ERP is in the market.

Secondly ABAP is very good in business related programming. So all the core business object will be continue to written in ABAP and all the web related applications will probably moved to JAVA.

But frankly speaking learning only ABAP is not going to take you anywhere. You have to do technof-unctional/Functional work soon or latter as you have already spend 2 years in ABAP. Only the person who also have buisness knowledge get importance in ERP field instead than a teche person. And if you gather good buisness knowledge then you will not be dependent on language.

In software engineering language learning is a very insignificant. Even and not engineer can also learn in a specific language and can do efficient coding using some language. So better learn SAP technology or Buisness.

[matt]

>

> But frankly speaking learning only ABAP is not going to take you anywhere. You have to do technof-unctional/Functional work soon or latter as you have already spend 2 years in ABAP. Only the person who also have buisness knowledge get importance in ERP field instead than a teche person. And if you gather good buisness knowledge then you will not be dependent on language.

>

> In software engineering language learning is a very insignificant. Even and not engineer can also learn in a specific language and can do efficient coding using some language. So better learn SAP technology or Buisness.

If every ABAPer after two years of ABAP experience moved away from programming, it wouldn't take long before there were no decent programmers left. One client I've worked for already found this an issue with their off-shore team - anyone who was any good moved out of programming or into management - result; no one available who could handle the really complex developments. On the plus side, those of us who are competent are assured work for years to come.

I've been programming ABAP at various levels for over ten years, and have been hearing rumours of ABAP's demise in all that time. It hasn't happened yet, and though I've widened my skill-set to cover the many components of Netweaver, I've still no plans to move out of being the technical area. If you're really worried - learn Java. The skill of programming is largely language independent. If you've mastered one, you can readily master another.

matt

[Former Member]

Hi Matt,

Thank you very much for sharing your view. Being a experienced person you are in a better position to bring light here. But you got me wrongly. I am not suggesting nor I am willing to move from technical to functional. I am only talking about learning the functional/ buisness knowledge underneath the SAP technology.

I am doing project in ABAP for last couple of years and the feeling I get is that knowing only the syntax and semantics of ABAP language is not helping me much. If I could gather some functional/buisness knowledge also then I believe I will be able to resolve the technical challenges more efficiently and more independently.

Thanks & Regards,

Abhishek Sarkar

[matt]

OK, I understand what you mean now. I agree with you.

>

> If I could gather some functional/buisness knowledge also then I believe I will be able to resolve the technical challenges more efficiently and more independently.

Absolutely! You'd be a much better programmer, and great value for your employer. I think the division between "functional" and "technical" is one of the worst parts of the SAP paradigm. It doesn't exist in other parts of the IT industry. Years ago, we had "Analyst/programmers" who talked to the customers, gathered requirements, then wrote the programs.

matt

[Former Member]

Hi

see what ever comes our SAP R/3 application server can only understand our ABAP so new flaours may come over here and we sholud try to learn thos never ABAP is going to finish but try to learn BI if possible it will be always benifited as functional consultant rather than Tech consultant if u have knowledge on both there will no dought for u r future i thhink i am clear to u..

so stop bothering about it and try to start learn new flaovurs it will be more benefitted to u..

<REMOVED BY MODERATOR>

thanks sunilkumar mutyala

Edited by: Alvaro Tejada Galindo on Feb 18, 2008 12:28 PM