Maksim Rashchynski – SCN Member of the Month April 2015

In addition to being a seasoned techie, he is an active father of two and leather craftsman who makes among other things, handmade moccasins for his little girl. (I bet you all want to see the photo as much as I did, keep reading, it’s included below.) We both agreed on the joy a tangible creative outlet provides, it is like a form of mediation or therapy for those of us who spend so many hours working in front of a computer.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, what kind of work you do, and other things you would like to share with the community (hobbies, fun facts)?
I live in Laguna Niguel, California and I am in the consulting business, doing mostly UI/UX related work for customers running SAP. I can define myself as “usability freak”, I am known for fighting for every click a user has to make.

Data analysis and visualization is another passion, I use HCP and SAP Lumira for a lot of personal things, like finance/budget, workouts, weight and even grocery analysis and visualization.

I can claim 15 years of mobile development experience as my diploma at university included an application for Palm Pilot.

I usually spend my free time with my family, South California gives tons of options, our favorite spots are the Natural History Museum in LA ( Dinosaurus! ), Legoland and Balboa Park in San Diego.

When my kids are in bed, my main hobby is programming (surprise!). Now with Raspberry Pi and Lego Mindstorm NXT results are all around the house :-).

Sometimes I like to make things from leather, it is a very meditative process with immediate tangible results. My most recent piece is a set of moccasins for my 9 month old daughter.

Living in South California you would hardly avoid outdoor and ocean related hobbies like paddle boat and bodyboarding, so whenever I have a chance I go to the beach. Swimming, running, and basketball are sports I prefer in order to stay in shape.

When did you become a member of SCN and which areas are you most active in?
In November 2014 I had a 10th anniversary, wow. I got inspired by my ex-colleague Valery Silaev.

Areas were Web Dynpro Java, Web Dynpro ABAP, Java Development, SAP Enterprise Portal – initially; UI Development Toolkit for HTML5 Developer Center, SAP Fiori, SAP Gateway, SAP Cloud Applications Studio – currently.

I noticed you generously share coding tips and tricks you’ve come up with in your own SAPUI5 consulting work. What motivates you to share your expertise? And how do you find the time to contribute so actively on SCN?
There are a couple of aspects to why:

1. First, I personally feel like knowledge is like a seed, not gold – you plant it to get more, not stash it. Sharing and exchanging  ideas is a great way to get an inspiration for something new. Synergy allows you to grow and develop professionally. The world of SAP technologies is so big, it is hard for one person to know each and every aspect even in one field. Just a couple of examples from the SAPUI5 community – I didn’t use custom controls, but after following Dennis Seah’s blogs and posts I started realizing the power of them (I even “declared” him a King of the Custom Controls http://scn.sap.com/message/15692272#15692272 ). Or using Grunt to generate a pre-loaded version of a component – I had no idea until I read about it on SCN.
2. Second, there is a theory in teaching saying thatexplaining something to someone will make it more clear for yourself. There is a Russian joke about a professor explaining a theory to students for the third time in a row, losing patience and shouting – It got clear even for ME but you are still not getting it!…
3. Third, I like the problem solving process, that itself is a great motivator to explore new areas and organize knowledge in a more structured way, evolution from gut feeling to clear understanding. Questions with 0 answers, hanging unanswered for couple days (sign of a no-easy-answer) – that’s my favorite treat 😉

Time wise it is usually 3 batches, in the morning, lunchtime and in the evening. I go through the list of questions, pick interesting, answer straightforward, bookmark more challenging to work on them later. Blogs and documents are usually for evenings/weekends. I had a pretty light work load in February/March (“bonus” of being an independent consultant), so I spent a lot of time on SCN.

Would you share your experience with the SAP digital landscape with me? What is SAP doing right? What could SAP being doing better to get you the tools and information you need to do your job?
I am really impressed with what SAP did to raise awareness in the UI/UX field. OpenSAP courses, experience.sap.com, Public Fiori Sandbox etc. That, to be honest, was so “not SAP” initially… but after a while it became a “new SAP” to me.

What SAP could be doing better? I think if SAP can come up with a cheat sheet having TCode in one column and Fiori app in another – that would be huge! Oversimplified, I know, but I heard that wish at least 3 times last year from 3 different clients. Customers like to be guided, clear direction for further move; sometime SAP lacks that, IMHO.

Is there an SCN member you admire (OK… you can name a few)? And for what reason?

Tough question, list could be like 30+ positions long, let me pick 2 leaders from my favorite spots – Fiori and SAPUI5:

Masayuki Sekihara – Size of a contribution is huge, just hat off, can’t really imagine how it is possible from a time management perspective

Robin van het Hof – I feel like Robin shares the same values in community and in technology vision that I have

Easy question: Mac/iOS or Windows? Or Android?
Windows and Android, sometime I have to fix my wife’s Air though 😉 and iPad to watch movies while running on a treadmill