If you're wondering why the topic sounds so out of place, don't... because I assure you, the meaning will unfold in politically correct ways in the course of this post. Today, with this weblog, I take a very excited first step into two new worlds, NetWeaver and Weblogs, both of which I no doubt feel extremely privileged being a part of. I have been writing technical and non-technical articles for a variety of subjects for some time now, but something about SDN spurred me to jump headlong into it, something similar to what happens when you finally reach an untouched, uninhabited pearl-white beach with heavenly emerald surf after having to go through great pains to discover it. You just have to take a plunge to complete the experience. So here I am... taking that very plunge!
Several years ago, my decision to enter the SAP ABAP and Basis world had just one negative consequence, or so I thought at the time. That consequence was - keeping a long story short - to let go of 4 memorable years of a passionate love affair with a programming language that had grown to become my lifeblood, Java. Even as I type this, I am violently resisting the temptation to write a few decent-sized paragraphs about my adventures with this beautiful, object-oriented, platform-independent, forever evolving language. The reason I resist is simply because I'm aware that this forum is not about programmer's relationships with programming languages (Somebody I know who's married to a programmer said to me once, that if somebody took a poll involving programmers seeking to know who they would love to have an affair with, programming languages would top the list!). Well, for me, the transition from Java and J2EE to SAP and ABAP/4 was less painful than I thought it would be, but yes, I missed Java. As I dived deeper into the SAP Application Framework, I was continually overawed by the sheer complexity of the various components and how, they plugged so simply and seamlessly into each other. Soon, I was having a new affair, this time with R/3. After gaining some experience with R/3, I had the opportunity to sit back and summarize the world of R/3, like when you see Earth from space, you may not see the houses and the trees and the people, but in one glance, you grab a snapshot of how everything fits in the complete, broad picture. That was when I realized that there's something amazing about keeping a monstrous collection of heterogeneous components working together like clockwork across multiple hardware, software and database platforms... across multiple, otherwise incompatible legacy and other third-party applications, programming environments and protocols... across all departments, people and languages of the enterprise... across the world, 24x7x365!
When the impending concept of NetWeaver managed to find it's way to my observation, the first thing that struck me was the fact that the words "Java" and "ABAP" were coexisting in the same sentence. I smelt opportunity and believe me, it was one hell of a strong scent. I read ahead and was impressed by the possibilities that presented themselves to my imagination. The combination of business level application components built on ABAP or Java using the myriad tools that are and will be part of the framework, and making them work together, providing performance and scalability far beyond what either Java or ABAP would be able to achieve individually, is the kind of stuff that defies mathematics. 1 + 1 in this case is definitely far greater than just 2!
As a result, what I have done in the recent past is: pulled out my Java arrows from my quiver, wiped the dust off them and prepared them to be shot from my SAP R/3 bow, knowing fully well that my armory is now, definitely enhanced. I can almost see the hordes of Java and ABAP fans preparing themselves for what is sure to be the rendezvous of their lives, NetWeaver. Java and ABAP is a combination that's here to stay. And to everybody intending to be bigamous like I am, enjoy the combination...
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Weblogs about NetWeaver and other technologies on SDN and I must say, the webloggers here set great examples and some high standards. I intend to keep this in mind whenever I contribute my bit to the great compendium of knowledge this forum is destined to become. Keep the good stuff coming at SDN and hope you find my posts tolerable!
