#52: ABAP Survival, AI Littlefinger, ERP Cage Match, Bad Design
In this incredible issue:
Survival Tactics for ABAP Developers
One does not need a crystal ball to see that for ABAP developers, the future will look different than RICEF stuff (barf) of early 2000s. Exciting but also scary.
Let’s start with the baseline. IMHO in 2024 the “ABAP MVP” includes: OOP (classes/methods, exception handling, nothing fancy really), OData development, ABAP RAP (at least understand what it is), S/4HANA Extensibility (even if you’re stuck in ECC, it’s coming for ya’!), and Fiori Elements (to spin off simple front end).
What about SAPUI5 and other front-end stuff? I think if you want to learn something (anything), you totally should (unless it’s Web Dynpro). But the back-end scope in SAP is enormous and there is already an abundance of skilled front-end developers. Why get into red ocean?
SAP CAP? In all honesty, I wouldn’t prioritize this learning right now unless you have a specific need or just really want to.
You might see some like-seeking LI posts claiming everyone needs to “learn SAP BTP”. As such, “SAP BTP” is not a skill, let’s get this straight. There is a variety of services and solutions that have something to do with SAP BTP. Customer surveys always show interest in integration (e.g. Integration Suite, event mesh) and automation (SAP BPA and such), so these subjects are a safe bet but there are many others.
The best general survival tactic I can offer is this: look into your heart, ask yourself what your goal is, and think about why you got into ABAP development in the first place. If you enjoy something, you’ll be likely to do it more and learn faster. And the more you practice, the more skilled you will become. It’s really that simple. JP
AI Is Not A Pit, AI Is A Ladder
SAP is restructuring jobs to focus on dumping boatloads of money into AI, in what the piece says is Christian Klein's strategic transformation: "the next chapter for SAP". The writer says SAP’s focus will be on business AI, a "notable shift in its investment priorities".
This reminds me of a related bit of news. In mid-2023, IBM announced plans to replace jobs and slow hiring in areas that they foresee AI having a huge impact. The linked piece calls out that "workers in finance, accounting, HR and other areas will likely find themselves facing stiff competition from robots and algorithms".
Both of those pieces light up in my head when I read this one from Decode, "Tech Layoffs Not Tied to Economic Struggles, but AI Investments". Is it true that, in large part, the recent layoffs have been AI-driven? Notably, the layoffs have come when the overall unemployment rate is low and the companies themselves seem to be performing quite well.
Is this all just an AI Littlefinger maneuver? If AI hasn't yet actually taken this many jobs from the companies doing layoffs, have the bots simply found themselves moving craftily through chaos? Instead of toiling away at human tasks, has AI just convinced executives of its impact so well that they’re preemptively firing humans? This could be AI's most human maneuver yet. PM
Bad, Bad Design!
Welcome to another installment of “stuff I found on YT” series! Last gem is “Wouldn’t it be cool…” and other bad design approaches talk from Billy Hollis.
I found this one super relatable in SAP world:
Red flag phrase: The users just need more training on that. Our convenience should not trump user needs.
Yeah… Hard to count how many times I’ve heard “well, it’s a user training issue”. And to be fair, back in the days, with very limited options in SAP it wasn’t easy to build great UI. What could be accomplished with a few clicks in other environments, required some white magic trickery in ABAP. But let’s not drag this bad mindset into the future. And even in the good (or bad?) old days I always rolled eyes at lazy ABAPers who would not add MEMORY ID or set default values.
There were also some thoughts I couldn’t agree with. For example, Billy said that he’s not seen “Build, then get feedback” to work to get good design. Not sure if “this is a development joke I’m too SAP to understand” or something else. I found it much more efficient and practical just to program a selection screen, for example, and show it to the users instead of talking about it in front of a white board.
But I think everyone would agree on not getting too drunk on our own Kool-Aid:
You’re not doing it primarily because it’s cool. If it doesn’t work, the coolness doesn’t help.
Developers, architects, other nerds, please put this on a t-shirt or a plaque. JP
MacABAP
A colleague recently said that he found SAP ABAP prosaic: "having the style or diction of prose; lacking poetic beauty". I've always kind of loved the wordy style of ABAP - but I do agree that my code often lacks poetic beauty. In the spirit of rectifying that, here are two little chunks of Macbeth, rewritten with an ABAP flair.
Is this a RAISE EXCEPTION which I CHECK before me? The HANDLE toward my FIELD? Come, let me CATCH thee. I ASSIGN thee not, and yet I CHECK thee still. Art thou EMPTY, CRITICAL vision, ENABLED To ENCODING as to CHECKing? Or art thou but An EXCEPTION of the USER, a false INSTANCE, Proceeding from the UNASSIGNed CLIENT? I CHECK thee yet, in FORM as ALLOCATEd As this which I now EXTEND.
ADD 1 TO DATE, and ADD 1 TO DATE, and ADD 1 TO DATE, LOOPs in this METHOD from CALL to CALL To the last REPORT of recorded TIMESTAMPs, And all our SUBTRACT 1 FROM DATEs have lighted fools The way to SHORTDUMP-ID. OUTPUT, OUTPUT, brief candle! PROGRAM's but a walking DUPLICATE, a poor player That PERFORMs and frets his WAIT UP TO 3600 SECONDS upon the stage And then is RECEIVED no more: it is a FUNCTION Told by an EXCEPTION, full of TRY and CATCH, Signifying NULL.
PM
AI Fundamentals
In a previous issue, I contemplated the meaning of “AI beginner”. If like me, you were slightly confused by the Microsoft AI course, I have some good news. IBM Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals learning plan includes 6 courses that are suitable for complete beginners (and non-developers). It’s free and upon successful completion provides a cool badge to showcase on your LinkedIn profile. Of course, just like any vendor-provided course it’s somewhat IBM-leaning but not terribly so. I really liked simple explanations in this course and references to the additional resources.
I’m planning to follow this up with additional courses on machine learning. Kaggle offers free courses and competitions, which is cool if that’s your thing. I’ve also previewed this course on Datacamp. There are paid offerings from Coursera or other platforms, of course, but as far as free education goes, these look very good.
Even if you’re an AI skeptic, it helps to know a potential enemy. Put some “me time” on your work calendar and learn the fundamentals of “auto-correct on steroids” as this video aptly calls it. JP
ERP Cage Match
I can't believe this event has happened over 20 times in the past and I haven't heard of it. It's genius. ERP HEADtoHEAD™ is a two-day event that pits leading ERP solutions against each other. Every enterprise software vendor on the planet would love to get their prospective customers sequestered away from the competition, so it's kinda perfect that this event turns that on its head to gather them for a royal rumble.
The format sounds awesome. On day 1, each vendor gives an "Elevator Speech" to try to drum up interest in a deeper demonstration of their offering. Attendees then choose to go to longer sessions for the vendors who grabbed their interest. 4 concurrent tracks of those longer sessions run, and each demonstration is based on a commonly-defined script. The part that makes it a true royal rumble is the final award: "ERP HEADtoHEAD™ Best Vendor Demonstration". Vendors are rated after sessions, and the overall highest score takes the championship belt.
I've been on both sides of the enterprise sales pitch. I've seen vendors scheme and contrive to glamorize their solutions while downplaying others. Getting everyone in the same ring to duke it out in front of the world is refreshing. And I'd really love to see Hasso "The HANA Hammer" Plattner body slam Larry "Oracle NetSlayer" Ellison. PM
Sweet 16 episode of The Boring Enterprise Nerdcast is out now on our YouTube channel! We talk about The SAP Skillpocalypse and what we learned from dinosaurs.
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