ABAP_to_the_Future

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It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly sight
harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at
present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent
egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
—C. S. Lewis
Introduction
Eggs are no doubt lovely places to be inside, full of food and warm from mum sitting
on top of the egg. However, living inside an egg most likely does not give you
a very good idea of the changes taking place in the outside world. In the world of
SAP, such change can be horrifyingly scary: There is an army of programmers at
SAP constantly disgorging a stream of new goodies. Developers around the world
would probably love them—but often 99% of such programmers remain hidden
inside their eggs, blissfully ignorant of the new treasure chest in their SAP system
basement.
To avoid this all-too-common situation, th e purpose of this book is to shine a
spotlight on such improvements. As such, it is aimed at any and all inquisitive
ABAP developers. While I cover new technology, I also cover some topics that
might not be considered “new”; this is because I have noticed that many people
who are unaware of SAP-delivered improv ements that came out six months ago
are equally unaware of improvements that came out five years ago. I will give
these topics some attention because it’s very possible that you are discovering
them for the first time.
The idea for this book comes from an observed reluctance to use new technology
and, at the same time, a compulsion to use new technology. One of the best blog
posts ever on the SAP Community Netw ork website was one by Graham Robinson
called “A Call to Arms for ABAP Developers.” In this post, Robinson provides
a (supposedly fictitious) example of an ABAP developer who joins a consulting
company at the start of the SAP wave in the late nineties. He learns all there is to
know about SAP development as it was at that point—all at the client’s expense—
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