New ABAP

In this article we would like to introduce you the topic "New ABAP". Where does the term come from and is everything really as new as everybody says?

To get it straight to the point, nothing has changed for the old ABAP programmers. Since the first patch levels of 7.40, the first new language terms have been introduced that have been incorporated into the ABAP language as part of HANA development. The new functions are usually only a supplement to existing functions.

The past

SAP would like to take ABAP to the next level of modernity, as it did when introducing classes and OOP. This has many reasons, but since 7.1 they have started to improve the language:

Unsexy

The language ABAP is very similar to the old programming language COBOL, many functions are written on one line. For many developers, especially in the field of Java development, this is unsexy because "simplest" things do not work, such as calculating in IF-conditions.

" Compare within an if-statement
IF LINES( LT_T001 ) > LINES( LT_BUKRS ) + 1.
  " ... Logic
ENDIF.

Inflexible

Chained method calls have never worked, you had to create a variable first, create the instance of the class and then you could call other methods with that variable.

" Chained method calls
NEW cl_gui_alv_grid( ... )->set_table_for_first_display( ... ).

Specialized

In any case, with the programming language ABAP you are a specialist in your field for SAP, but companies also need specialists that are familiar with the language. But looking at the developer market, you'll find that there are many more Java developers than specialized ABAP developers.

The future

SAP is moving in a new direction with HANA and UI5. In the same breath, the Walldorf company now wants to make ABAP a bit more modern. The trend shows that the impact of Java on ABAP is increasing. Many inline commands have been implemented and the new development environment is Eclipse.

We really like many of the new features. By omitting many data declarations at the beginning or in the head of the code, the code is now generally much clearer and limited to the ordinary.

With the new development environment now also a wider part of the developers, also from the Java environment, can be addressed.

Conclusion

We think SAP is going in the right direction and is able to implement many modern aspects in the ABAP language. So it's time for you to do something new, if you do not already do it anyway.

Source:
Wikipedia ABAP
SAP Blog News for 7.40