Introduction

On the 30th of May we hosted ABAP on HANA First CodeJam in the beautiful buildings of TCS in Hyderabad, And it was a very awesome experience.

Three SAP experts and 28 motivated participants met there. After a short introduction about SAP HANA and the new tooling (SAP HANA Studio and ABAP in Eclipse), the participants started to work on the exercises. At least almost all participants some struggled on getting the Eclipse-based tooling installed. But as we had a very good ratio of experts to participants we could solve almost all issues

I would like to take this chance and not only talk about the ABAP on HANA CodeJam event but also offer you some insights into how ABAP on HANA CodeJams are usually being run.

Current CodeJam Format

ABAP on HANA CodeJam which is more flexible and offers a lot more time (5-6 hours) for playing with the product and asking questions. The agenda in Hyderabad looked like this:

1) What is a CodeJam? + Brief overview of ABAP on HANA

2) Demo: Essential features

3) Exercise 1

4) Demo: Advanced features + tips and tricks

5) Exercise 2,3,4,5

The exercises

Both exercises are based on simple ABAP reports so they are easy to understand. Moreover, both of them incorporate ABAP Unit tests. This is great because not only are you learning how to use ABAP in Eclipse you also get an introduction on writing automated tests with ABAP Unit.

All exercises are being done on the newest NetWeaver server release. The servers themselves are provided by SAP and run in the cloud.

Below are the topics for exercises.

1. ABAP DEVELOPMENT TOOLS FOR SAP NETWEAVER AS ABAP

2 .SQL PERFORMANCE TUNING WORKLIST IN SAP NETWEAVER AS ABAP

3 .ADVANCED VIEW BUILDING IN SAP NETWEAVER AS ABAP

4 .OPENSQL EXTENSIONS IN SAP NETWEAVER AS ABAP

5 .ABAP MANAGED DATABASE PROCEDURE (AMDP) AND CONSUMPTION IN ABAP

The exercises were a mix between data modeling in HANA Studio and consumption in ABAP. As you might expect, for the data modelling part an ABAP developer has to recall his rusty SQL skills. But even for the ABAP part more SQL is needed with HANA. Because you want to use the power of the database you develop native SQL and do the so called “code push down” (meaning pushing the logic from the ABAP AS to the database). So with HANA using native SQL in ABAP is not evil anymore .

It’s all about code!

The participants were all ready with installations, geared up to code. It was all about ABAP on HANA, exploring the new possibilities the platform offers to develop ABAP applications on SAP HANA, leveraging the capabilities of SAP HANA. The developers were introduced to the “ABAP Development Tools” aka “ABAP in Eclipse” –Additionally, the content included few getting-started tutorials of ABAP on SAP HANA – optimizing the performance of ABAP report using Open SQL, basics of HANA modeling and its consumption in ABAP..

Tasty Food

One of the reasons SAP CodeJam events are famous for is “The Food” and this event was no different . While taking a break from coding to have some good food, it was also time for networking – developers coming together, exchanging their ideas, sharing their learnings – having fun.

As I already mentioned, networking was also part of the CodeJam and our kitchen was a good place to do that. One reason for this was the provided food there.

it was another cool learning and community event in a really relaxed atmosphere and for me the starting point into the new ABAP on HANA world.

The great thing about CodeJams is that you are using your own laptop so once you are back at your company everything is already installed and you can start using your newly gained skills immediately

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Final thoughts

I am a big fan of the CodeJam format. It is a very casual learning environment. It allows me to meet interesting people from the SAP community and I get the chance to show the newest ABAP in Eclipse features. Additionally, CodeJams usually take place at interesting locations which you normally do not get access to.

There were three awesome SAP Experts Padmashree B, Sundaresan Krishnamurthy , Gopalakrishnan Ramachandran from SAP Labs Bangalore & Many thanks to them for their time & assistance..

Our special to thanks to TCS Management specially Deepak Kota,Satya Vaddi ,Ravi Sankar & Nilesh Khedkar  for supporting  to organize & Host first ever SAP codejam in TCS Hyderabad office.

In summary, we see the event as a complete success. Everyone learned something new and was able to get a glimpse into the very near future. Furthermore, developer meetings are a good means of building a network of our own; and last but not least, it was a lot of fun. Our thanks go to SAP and all of the participants, and we look forward to the next event.

The event was over-booked. We even had one participant who crossed the city from Bangalore (thanks for making the trip Pawan).

Before I sign off I’d like to thank everyone who made the day possible,

One last thing, I encourage anyone reading this to get involved – do you think you could organize a CodeJam in your city? I think you can and should.

Humble Request ” If you are not attending after the registration let us know so that we can give space for others who are not registered.

To find out whats happening on SIT , Join our Linked Group : SAP Inside Track India Group

Facebook group SAP Inside Track India to connect and share among the local community members in India.

First Ever SAP HANA CodeJam in Hyderabad

Participant Blogs

Satish                 :    My First Code Jam – ABAP on HANA in Hyderabad

Siva Rama         :    My Experience – ‘SAP CODE JAM-HYD, Hands on ABAP ON HANA’