Hi Navin,
as mentioned in the course (ABAP Development for SAP HANA - Dr. Jasmin Gruschke and Jens Weiler) with the features provided in SAP NW 7.4 we encourage you to follow the code-to-data paradigm to push data-intensive coding down to the HANA database. But we also encourage you to do this with the capabilities Open SQL, CDS views, (and AMDPs if the other are not enough and you need native HANA features). With these ABAP-managed capabilities, there's no need to go too deep into the HANA (talking about becoming a HANA native programmer) but of course HANA has a huge influence on how we develop - it's HANAs capabilities that we are leveraging when doing the code-to-data paradigm.
So, we typically say, that it's important to get an understanding of SQL (in particular of the Open SQL), which is sometimes lost when only accessing the database content via exiting FuBas, Class methods, or other APIs. But to understand how you (well your programs) can profit from HANA, you should have a fundamental understanding of how SQL can help you... e.g. that JOINs might be a better option than SELECT..... SELECT SINGLE ... ENDSELECT loops etc.
And with the rise of S/4 HANA (see the openSAP course SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA in a Nutshell - ) it should be clear that ABAP is still an important ingredient in the world of business application 🙂
Cheers,
Jasmin
