Personal Insights
Deep Dark Thoughts – SAP Community I’m Horrified that…
This could easily be a coffee corner topic. But as I’m thinking about it, I think it deserves a blog. There are so many things to pick that horrify me. I’m sure you have some too!
I’m Horrified that:
Many of the community members don’t know about Coffee Corner.
After many blogs, many discussions, and examples – unit tests are not a part of a normal design. It was all started by a free course – the debate, of course it was started long before that by Paul Hardy. Take a look at this refresher.
We are still complaining about the platform. Get over it. “They” are working on fixing it.
Technical people – yes you, yes me.. – are resistant to change. We have new toys. We aren’t playing with them. ABAP CDS, JSON, HTML… Some of these have been around forever. Time to pick up another skill. Old version, not a problem, time to develop a web app. You still can do it even back on 4.6C.
Blunt isn’t a good thing anymore. This blog is blunt. Too harsh? I could have made it easier to read, but choose not too. Some fluffy language is an absolute must to learn and use. My own Dad had to censure what he said to his own daughter. Really? Crazy.
People are too blunt! Learning when and where to be blunt is a hard but needed skill. Being critical to the point of discouraging is NOT a positive thing.
New ABAP Techniques are being outlawed at some companies. Why because of supportable of course. Even objects can be discouraged.
BTW – I’m horrified that I still don’t know how to correctly use objects.
SAP constantly changes the names of basically the same product. Even here we were SDN, SCN, and now SAP Community. I may have missed a couple of names in there. It’s harder when it is products that change names.
There are two different paths to take on-premise and in the cloud. On-premise seems to be getting very little blogs, information, etc. While on the cloud is getting new things, AND the support here. I gave up asking the question if the blog would work for on-premise.
SAP Community is split. Some people still on the “older” versions. HA! They aren’t that old. And some on HANA. HANA gets the most blogs. But then again the most information is still on the older stuff – just do a search.
Some people don’t feel “safe” posting here. They are worried about the member response. Just no! Post and if I have the time, and it’s something I want to know – I’ll leave a comment. Name drop or message me and I’ll look at it. Feel safe – it’s a family. A large dysfunctional family, but a family none the less.
Specifications are STILL being talked about. Haven’t we worked that out yet. What we need/want in a spec? I know what I want – I don’t always – wait I do always get it because I write the specification.
Anyone would consider a different ERP software than SAP. Really? Haven’t they heard SAP rules!
Putting someone down is still a thing. Goes back to blunt. You can be blunt without being personal. Really people – grow up!
Last but not least I would be horrified if no-one disagreed with me. We are all very different. Leave comments about it. Generate discussion. This is my list of “horrified”. I probably missed/left out a lot. I also may be totally wrong. Convince me. Comment away!
I agree with many points, but have to disagree with :
I’m horrified that honesty Is now considered blunt/rude and we have to fluff every conversation so it doesn’t appear like we’re criticizing something.
Yes, personal attacks have no place in the professional conversations, but if the idea or process or code fragment doesn’t add anything of value or doesn't makes any improvement or is useless in the long run – gosh darn it, we should be able to call it that without fear of being dragged to HR.
Agreed. But can’t you also give a better way to do it?
“This won’t work, but if you did this it would fix the problem”
I’m laughing because it’s too true. Sensitivity training from HR. That’s not really an issue in a small company. We know each other fairly well.
BTW - my sister is very sensitive about some things. So my Dad choose to say nothing to my sister. Oh boy. It wouldn't even be something I'd consider a personal attack. But we all do that at different times. I honestly wish he didn't have to do that, it was family.
Well, of course, if you know of better way you offer it, but sometimes you don't know the "better" way, yet know that proposed one is not going to work. Either it was done before or its missing the point or is fixing something that is not the actual issue ....
the point is - we have to have freedom to tell the truth. Nothing but the truth. Without fear.
On the same topic - I also do not understand how "Freedom of speech" is always being narrowed down to "when government is involved only".
What difference does it make if the repression comes from government/dictatorships or from your employer ?
I'd say in some countries loosing one's job is more horrifying prospect than going to jail.
Freedom of speech either exist without qualifiers or it doesn't exist at all.
Wow - that's an interesting comment. Yes, freedom of speech. BUT you are totally right if it doesn't fall within your company's guidelines, you will be fired. Freedom of speech, you can say it. BUT you will probably lose your job.
So philosophically is freedom of speech really freedom of speech?
Also add some values, ethics, morals to that debate. It's an interesting thought. And one that will probably occupy my "free" thought time. Thank you! I needed that today.
Hey Michelle,
as always, thanks for your thoughts!
Here's proof that I'm not totally resistant to learning new things: 😉
I learned something about JSON recently, namely that the command line tool jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/) seems very helpful!
My use case was easy, I just wanted to beautify a file, so I could understand it better:
You might know about it already: https://mastodon.technology/@Joachim_Rees/101177633790904174 😉
best
Joachim
Yes - you are very open to new things! I have not been keeping up with mastodon.
Thank you!
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
Nice blog there!! Too many issues in a single blog :p could have been multiple coffee corner discussions 😀 😀
Sometimes I too feel like SAP is introducing multiple things at a time.. not even giving enough time to consultants to pick thth up 😀 I guess that's how things are these days..
SAP introduced ui5 and now fiori elements so a lot of less ui5 coding.. I kind of felt bad there when they took ui5 away(not really but kind of) 🙁 now I started to read some old blogs and especially SAP help and started to explore the CDS and the annotations world 😀 I think at the end we have to.. no other choice..
And yeah, If anyone asks questions (dumb), it might be that they are new or don't know how to effectively use Google (fewfpeople are there :D).. I guess we shouldn't spoil their SAP experience by just commenting harshly, its better to just leave a comment on how to search and leave a help or a blog link might which might not even take more than 20 sseconds..
BR, Mahesh
Totally agree it could be a lot of Coffee Corner fun. Ah but... Not many people stop in. Or maybe they do and I just don't look at those posts. I admit to being completely unable to keep up with everything. That's a good thing. That means there's a lot going on here.
Yes - a lot of issue. Mwahahahaha! That's my evil laugh.
ui5 -> Fiori Elements -> WebIDE. I've heard WebIDE is the best one to start with / learn on. We'll see. Then of course once it is designed link it into a fiori app. Sigh there has to be an easier way to all of this. Right now I'm deep in the forest. And yes, I think we all will give up and know we have to learn the new stuff. But keep in mind for some it is not an easy path.
I learned Web Dynpro. I honestly think learning is good no matter what - by the way. Now however, webdynpro is OLD news.
Dumb questions? Is there ever a dumb question? I've had that debate before. I also have searched for an answer and found nothing and then thought of different searched terms and found a lot of information.
Thank you for the comment!!!
well you are right, there is no such thing as dumb question.. for one person it might be a very easy and a basic one but for others its a genuine question 🙂
Hi Michelle,
coffee corner is all coolness and i think SAP want it that way, too. so, it's good that we see blogs for everyone else outside of the coffee room as others may start thinking that all we do is drink coffee and spend no time on SAP technologies.
cheers, greg
We have interesting discussions in coffee corner - don't we? Yes, all these different areas that are great in the community. I think I've just barely scratched the surface.
Coffee corner is about having fun at times. It also is about different discussions. At least that's the way I feel. So if I leave an open ended question there or just want to talk pros and cons about something - nice place to go. Also a place to have "tech" talk about new/old technologies.
Thank you very much for being so open and honest Michelle and thank you for caring!
As you said, changes are numerous and new toys are all around and a lot of people are not going for them. I used to think that people in IT liked change, new tools, learning and improving but it turns out that resistance to change is a thing also in IT.
I used to be very anxious about bringing new concepts or new tools to my colleagues because they did not show any interest or actively fought what I brought.
Then I remembered that old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
Keep on learning
Back at you! Keep learning. Also don’t stop presenting the new toys to people. They might eventually decide to play with them.
And don't worry, there are tons of people here on the SAP community network that will THANK you for sharing your knowledge about how, what, why you did something new. There is a lot of support here for new challenges. And a good discussion about pros and cons is amazing.
Thank you for reading. And – of course – commenting.