My 2024 - Behind the Scenes

Table of contents

• Personally
• Events
• Blog
• Tools
• People
• Conclusion

The year is coming to an end and the quieter time is beginning, at least until January. For me, the stress for this year was already over after the ABAPConf. In this article, I would like to tell you something about my year and what I particularly remember.

 

Personally

SAP has developed rapidly in recent years and published many new methodologies, frameworks and development standards. As an ABAP developer, I am also faced with the challenge of knowing the most important things and staying up to date, just as you probably are. At the same time, blogs and deep dives on current topics are still hard to find in the SAP community and on the Internet. I think it is all the more important to give you and all other developers easy and free access to this information. The blog will therefore remain free for you for the seventh year.

For me personally, this year the focus was primarily on the community. Whether in the role of employee, deputy spokesperson for the DSAG or as a blogger. But sometimes it is difficult to do justice to each individual role or to achieve a clean separation. That is why I traveled around Germany a bit this year or was out and about in virtual space.

 

Events

As this year was the year of the community for me, I was also seen as a speaker at many events. If you were there, I hope I didn't bore you too much. So here is a short summary of where I was, maybe we saw each other or even spoke:

• DSAG Technology Days (Hamburg) - My presentation was about: How did we migrate our review tool to the SAP BTP ABAP environment and what challenges did we face?
• DSAG TechXChange (Hamburg) - The very next day I did a hands-on session on the topic of RAP Generator and Flexible Programming Model and showed those present that it can be done fairly elegantly and with little effort.

 

• ABAP Development Days (Wiesloch) - Normally the ADD is organized by SAP, for the 10th anniversary I was able to prepare a small ABAP quiz and later we will talk again about the topic of clean core strategy in the company.
• Interview Tricktresor (article) - How did I actually get into writing and do I have nothing better to do? I answered these and other questions for Enno.
• Open Source (virtual meeting) - I moderated the virtual theme day and presented the topic of abapGit in detail again. There were also insights into my own projects on this day.
• Nerdletter Talk 68 (YouTube) - I actually only wanted to discuss the next Show & Tell here, but then out of curiosity I stayed on the call and talked to Jelena and Paul about current topics for the newsletter.
• SAP TechEd (Heidelberg) - The highlight of this year was above all the SAP TechEd on site in the studio. It was especially exciting to speak English, as German is the norm for us in everyday life and there is a certain amount of uncertainty.
• DSAG Annual Congress (Leipzig) - ABAP Cloud and the ABAP Environment? Together with SAP, I reported from my company how we are doing side-by-side development today and are already using ABAP Cloud on-premise.

 

• Show & Tell (YouTube) - This episode was about the tools on Software-Heroes. Jelena and Paul gave me the opportunity to talk about the tools and options on the site and to provide some insights.
• SAP Fiori Innovation Day (Heidelberg) - Everything about the current topics in the SAP Fiori area, but here I was only active as a normal participant.
• ABAPConf (Mannheim) - What actually happens after the report? I looked into this question at the ABAPConf and tried to show that it is not so bad to provide a nice application with RAP and Fiori Elements.

 

I only followed the ABAPConf Europe virtually this year because there were too many events one after the other and I needed a personal break.

 

Blog

My main focus was on writing the articles because I want to use them to document my personal development, but also to bring you, the reader, up to date. I think it should be clear to every ABAP developer that we have to move if we don't want to be left behind. In addition to the blogs, the Learning Roadmap was also created; this should give you a direction as to which topics will be important in the next few years. I also use the roadmap internally in the company to have a goal for my colleagues and to know where we want to go.

As the backlog was slowly getting fuller, I changed the current rhythm to two articles a week (Tuesday and Friday). The idea was to fill Tuesday with smaller topics and place the big main topic on Friday. However, this also meant that Tuesday was clicked on more than Friday because the topic was more accessible.

But basically it also shows the current status of the community. As the DSAG and ASUG survey showed, many companies are preparing for the S/4HANA transformation. That's why not many companies are in the BTP on hot topics like ABAP Cloud and RAP development. But these topics are just as important because they are currently happening in my environment, but are also the basis for other companies.

 

Tools

If I were to describe the year in terms of development, I would say it was the "year of tools". In my daily work, I gain insights into the problems and challenges of my colleagues. Likewise, in discussions at DSAG, I hear a lot of topics about information, documentation and other problems. Such challenges bring with them new ideas and new tools that should help to ease the path to the new world or to make information available more quickly. This is how the various tools came into being, such as:

• Cloudification Repository Viewer
• ABAP Feature Matrix
• ABAP Learning Matrix
• SAP Technology Blogs
• XLF Translator
• CDS Field Mapping
• ...

 

I can also see from the reactions and the number of hits that the tools are well received and that some tools are also used intensively. For me, this confirms the work and time that I have put into the various tools.

 

People

An important topic is people and encounters. No, not encounters with the third kind, but you and the community. Since I was out and about so much this year, I also met a lot of new people from the community. I now have regular contact with some colleagues and thank you for the time you take to talk to me. It doesn't always have to be about SAP and ABAP.

Basically, I want to take a lot of time for the community and the people again next year. So if you have a personal question or want to know more about a topic, don't hesitate to ask. In principle, I am also approachable at events and only bite when I have to.

 

Conclusion

For me personally, this year was very exciting in every aspect, but also a bit stressful. That's why I'm looking forward to a few weeks of rest before things continue in Hockenheim at the end of January. But then it will already be 2025, so a new year and new luck.