#74: AI, ABAPConf, RFC, Joule
In this issue:
Best Hits of ABAPConf 2024
In December, ABAPConf was back online, with full day ABAP fest broadcast over 3 channels at the same time. The recordings (comments and all) are posted on YouTube as 3 long videos. This is not the easiest format to navigate but the “best hits” links below will take you directly to the specific session start time.
Unit testing has been a tough sell in the ABAP world. But this doesn’t stop people like Martin Jonen. His Unit Test your Business Objects in RAP session was quite well done and might actually convert a few heathens.
Marc Bernard talked about his passion project apm (ABAP package manager). It’s not about the ABAP packages you’re probably thinking of but more like the software package concept that exists in other languages. Some pretty interesting ideas there.
You might remember SAP Mentor Robert Eijpe as RAP vs CAP blog author mentioned in my old story. This time Robert recruited Octavian Mihail Savu to talk about Lessons learned building a product on clean core ABAP on S/4HANA public cloud. I love these sessions since they talk about warts and all, things you will only hear hush-hush or run into yourself. Some lessons made me face-palm so bad.
Aspiring cool hackers should watch Secure custom SAP development presented by Ivan Mans. It’s a rare “wait, we could do that?” type of session.
Special shout-out to Domi Bigl who did a fantastic job as Channel 2 host! And a tip of the head to the closing key note called The Modern SAP Full-stack Developer: the irony that “full stack” was presented by different people didn’t go unnoticed. :) JP
Show Us The Bad Stuff
I'm still on a bit of an SAP Business AI kick. Last issue I suggested we get good at filtering messaging to find the real, actual information behind it. I'm 92% sure that the SAP board of directors convened an emergency meeting based on my incredibly influential take, because a few days ago "SAP Business AI: Release Highlights Q4 2024" by Philipp Herzig landed in the News Center. There are a lot of things in there that are worth reading.
Something bugs me when I see a bunch of Joule video examples. To anyone who is listening: when you show off Joule, you must go further than the simple happy path. I think everyone would benefit from seeing interactions where the user's first prompt is not fully met by the AI's response. How do you recover from that and continue the conversation? What are the things that Joule can do that could help users work around little hiccups?
I work with people trying out AI chatbots a lot. Many people who don't live and breathe AI struggle when it comes to this interaction mode, and get frustrated when the first answer doesn't help. SAP, partners, customers, and fanboys all need to find ways to show the complexity and nuance that can come with AI interaction. PM
RFC: The Grey Cardinal of SAP Systems
The post Getting Started with SAP SNC for RFC integrations is not what I’d expect to see in my RSS feed in 2025.
If you just listen to the official SAP news, everything is AI and cloud. But in reality, to get stuff done, SAP ERP systems still rely a lot on the good old RFC (Remote Function Call). ELI5 for the uninitiated: it’s almost literally what the name says. You can open a connection that allows other systems to communicate with SAP systems remotely by calling special, remote-enabled functions.
Even though OData is getting more use, RFC + BAPI is a dream scenario for the advanced business users wondering, “how do I just get SAP data into my spreadsheet?”. All you need is a friendly Basis guy to open a connection.
RFC is rather strangely documented, perhaps to match its clandestine nature. For example, when searching for “RFC” on SAP Help portal, it only finds this document with illustrations in partial German and half-empty chapters where the code examples should be. Googling “RFC” leads to an old version of a similar document. But at the same time, the obscure page for SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET turns out to be a treasure trove of practical information for RFC+BAPI fans.
And if you think RFC is going to go away “in the cloud”, – ha! The “cloudy” background processing framework called bgPF is “built upon the background remote function call (bgRFC) but provides easy-to-use APIs that are completely abstracted from the bgRFC”. When an SAP instance on Mars talks to an SAP instance on Earth, I bet RFC will still be involved. JP
You Got LLM In Your ABAP
If you ever had a hankerin' for AI in your ABAP, there are several tools ready to give you a taste. Microsoft and IBM, for two, have made some small waves in months past by promoting their SDKs (maybe check out a past Nerdletter for a few more details).
While I appreciate the support from the big boys, I'm a huge proponent of community-created open-source projects. So I invite you to check out ABAP LLM Client, which slices out some of the hyperscaler-specific stuff to focus on pure LLM integration goodness. Huge shout out to the authors and maintainers.
I have two pieces of unsolicited reflection. Least surprising first: the ABAP world is probably one of the furthest away from adopting AI stuff. The decades-long paradigm has been ABAP doing robust, dependable, reliable enhancement to a huge platform. Businesses lightly patch up the edges of their ERP with it, and have tight specifications for limited ABAP-able actions. The ABAP layer directly calling LLMs will be a paradigm hardly anyone is accustomed to out of the gate, and will take a little bit to get stakeholder buy-in.
The other: examples examples examples! The repository has some tests (which is great), but the community needs to see the real-world scenarios where this LLM client does something useful. That will assist in the buy-in I mentioned earlier, and will also ease the path for our forthcoming robot overlords. PM
CES 2025
The Most Powerful Event in the World (according to its organizers) showcased some cool but also wacky products. The robot vacuum category was surprisingly strong this year, with the main attraction being Roborock Saros Z70. It’s like a Roomba with an arm - not only does it pick up objects, but it also puts them where they belong, demonstrating intelligence higher than that of a human teenager.
The controversially named Galbot appeared in a video with hilariously bad acting. The scene where a “clumsy” human dropped a glass reminded me of this excellent scene in The Fifth Element movie. I hope that Galbot also knows Heimlich maneuver.
And then there’s always that product that is either genius or just incredibly dumb. I present to you the HaloLock MagMouse: a mouse that comes with a magnet. If you’re carrying your laptop around, you can stick the mouse to it. It also has a built-in charging cable that is too short to be plugged in while the mouse is in use. That will be ONE MILLION dollars! JP
Extra Mayo
AI feels most relevant to me when I use it to write programs or brainstorm ideas. (And when Google Docs predicts the end of the previous sentence as I type it.) I am one of the people who feel the usefulness every day. I'm probably really annoying, because I hype it up to pretty much everyone I talk to. (I also have my fears, but haven't found a good way to articulate them.)
But the AI we use is not the AI I dreamed about when I was a kid. That AI could tackle any problem set in front of it, solve issues that we couldn't comprehend, and make discoveries that would blow our minds. So even though I thoroughly enjoy using the now-AI, the back of my mind tingles with a feel of "yeah, but writing software 20% faster isn't what changes the world".
The horizon beckons. Microsoft Research showed off MatterGen, using generative AI to explore new materials quickly. This early AI-assisted materials research may find ways to create better batteries, magnets, and fuel cells. Mayo Clinic and AI hardware company Cerebras Systems have created a foundation model to "improve diagnostics and personalize treatment selection", which uses human genome information to predict cancer predisposition and cardiovascular phenotypes.
If I had to choose between automating my boring CRUD app development away or improving the lives of millions of suffering people, I would not even take a nanosecond to decide. How incredible is it that the same technology might just do both? PM
Watch the corresponding Nerdletter Talk for some bonus content.
Looking for an early Valentine’s gift for that special nerd in your life? Our Boring merch shop got you covered!
It’s never too early or too late to show your support for the Nerdletter by buying us a cup of coffee. Every [insert currency code] goes directly to warming our hearts. Thank you for your support!
"The decades-long paradigm has been ABAP doing robust, dependable, reliable enhancement to a huge platform" - I agree: AI has limited relevance to ABAP and ERP in general.