I might sound like a moron today, but please give me a chance. I must also warn you that this might not be as interesting as debugging standard or reusing standard what the topic was the last time (check part one and part two of this blog series).
The best “SAP standard code” is the huge number of demos. Really. I am in the business for some time and still don`t know all of them and am happy all the time I find a new one. Why? What is so special about a short piece of codes, that is nothing else than a hint how to do certain things? It is “SAP standard”. That means it is in every system (ok, release dependent etc.).
That means that every time you need it, you just start SE38 and take a look (hmm, rather copy into a clipboard) all that useful stuff and start with real work from there.
Ok, one could suggest using Google + SDN. That`s what I do quite often too. But some companies don`t allow internet access just like that. You rather use a demo one click away that fill out all the forms to get the internet access from the same terminal you use to connect to the SAP system.
If you take a look at SDN, certain “questions” you see all over the place. Even if the “question” was “answered” million times before, people are asking it again and again. Some are simply lazy, some don`t know the shortcut using demos but many people (I`ve heard and I am also one of them) think that SDN is full of noise and wrong answers (when it comes to certain topics, not in general of course), that it is quicker to have a set of short reports dealing with the most common problems with you.
Take a look at the famous SFLIGHT demo. It covers so many technologies offering quick insights from various points of view. That is cool, isn`t it? Want to learn ABAP ALV? Go for SFLIGHT. Want to learn about WebDynpro? SFLIGHT have it all.
One could object that the demos are for the technology rather than application features. That is true. But check a life of an average developer. Compare the number of times you use ALV grid, ALV trees in panes, Adobe forms (I was quite active in Adobe forms forum some time before and 25% of the questions from the early days could be solved using FP_* demo reports), WebDynpro with a number of MARA table uses.
There are demos for identity management in SAP too (BAPI_USER_CREATE and other good friends). And other topics.
Every time I find a new demo program I recall the last time I was working on topic the demo program would solve in minutes for me. Not knowing about the suitable demo program I was struggling on my own, bugging people, running around SDN (or re-asking potentially easy questions and creating noise). Even if you find my experience funny, dear reader, make sure you know about all those important piece sone can find in every system (and use for light-speeding the development through CTRL+C and V).
Don`t reinvent the wheel. And don`t ask about ALV on SDN. Have a nice day.
P.S.: It is not a valid apology, that you don`t know about the demo programs. But to make it easier for those who don`t know about them: use Google, you will find wikis on SDN and other sources to research, also use SE38 with patterns like *DEMO*
