Personal Insights
SAP Teched CM102 – Links and Comments
This is a summary of the various links I used when starting with CDS. It will show how easy you can start with a new language. Each of them can be used to simply learn different things about SAP development.
I was going to set this up and give it to you after my session by my amazing interviewer Tudor Riscutia suggested it would be a great idea to post this prior. He also suggested some interesting questions and looks at this from a whole different view than I do. The links are at the end of this blog.
So why would you want to see or go to our session? The first one that we do is live. As he asks the questions – I’m sure my answers will change. I didn’t write down exactly what I would say. What fun would that be. And as we go along – it is a conversation. So who knows where it will end up going – I don’t.
Generally speaking the session is about learning a new skill. We focus on CDS, because it was the first one I learned that I put to practical use. These same steps will work for any of the “new” things that HANA brings. And actually you can probably use them for almost any type of SAP learning.
So, I won’t list the questions as they might change. I will update later as time permits. I’ll be there with you watching as many sessions as I can. So it might be awhile before this is updated.
Any questions about our session? After the session? Post here or I believe you can send me a direct message. I’ll answer anything I can. Anything I can’t, I bet another member could answer for you. Also there is a great chat option. Check out this blog post while watching about our SAP Online Track during Teched, it would be fun to be able to hear what others are thinking. I’ll be there after my live session and during my taped session. Also any other time that I can.
Links, Links, and More Links. My favorite lines:
Cloud Foundry Enable Web IDE for SAP Hana Development
SAP Developer Center | Official Resources for SAP Developers
Create an ABAP Core Data Services (CDS) View in ABAP On-Premise (sap.com)
GitHub– search abap cds
There is always the question and answers in our Community. Read the guide first and you shouldn’t have any problems posting a question. Q&A Guidelines | SAP Community
Want to get into different technology? The ABAP Freakshow offers so many different options, conversations, and interesting things.
Devtoberfest created some interesting tools that we can use. Take a look at this blog post.
And last by not least there is always Twitter. A lot of the profiles link into Twitter. Find your favorites and follow them.
If you have any great links for learning anything – not just CDS please add them here. I just ask that they be free links.
And speaking of the session: It’s Learning a New Skill Isn’t As Hard As It Used to Be [CM102] in the SAP TechEd session catalog. The live session is at 3:15 p.m. ET and the replay is at 8:15 p.m. ET — both on Tuesday, December 8. You’ll definitely want to add to your schedule!
–Jerry
Hi Michelle
Thank you very much for sharing your experience in your session and all the links here.
What I find the most demanding thing in gathering the right information when it comes to learn new SAP technologies is that so many blogs are outdated within no time. Especially if we are looking at SAP Cloud Platform or SAPUI5 topics, tools are changing so quickly that step-by-step instructions often show an "old" and obsolete way. As a newbie it is hard to recognize which information is still valid and which is not.
How do you deal with this challenge?
Regards from Switzerland
Michaela
That's a great question!
So it's not easy. I have focused on learning Eclipse. I now - from Teched - know that VS Code is probably a better tool to use. So I am out of date. Did I learn the wrong thing? No. I can still use what I've learned and even still use Eclipse.
I think that the problem is how fast things are moving right now. Also we all want a handbook. I know I do.
If I'm learning - the SAP Tutorials are usually the best. If I am trying to find an answer or a step by step to something else specific then I go to the blogs. Keep in mind Github might have your solution done if not all the way then partially.
If you want to create a business reason for moving to the newer version - I'm going to do an interview with Tammy Powlas. She is going over some free tools that will help. The session is CM101, and she has some great information.
How do I look at the blogs?
So here's some things I would do for SAPGUI5.
So now I don't know if that's all your looking for... But I'll pretend that it isn't you need detailed information on navigation.
One of the blogs I get is from 2018. That probably isn't new enough. So I clicked on the author. Then I looked at their content. Sometimes I get lucky and find a newer blog that they wrote. I also may use some keywords from their blog to search some more. I've found that the SAP Community is "usually" the best place for your answer. But this paragraph is more about finding an answer.
Next:
SAP Cloud Platform - first stop https://www.sap.com/products/cloud-platform.html?btp=99a007e4-11cd-4ddf-9796-0b7d9d6a37a7
Now this one I would narrow down. So start at the larger idea "SAP Cloud Platform" and then narrow it down to what your really want to know. sap.open.com is a good place to start to get an overview.
Hi Michelle
whow, thanks a lot for this comprehensive reply. 🙂
Concerning your last sentence - I guess you meant https://open.sap.com/ not sap.open.com .
One comment from my experience: Even in SAP tutorials I experienced that some details had already changed, so that the documentation or tutorials are not 100% up to date anymore. Probably it is also not possible to keep all sources up to date. For example, the courses at open.sap.com face the issue that the courses are produced at a specific time point and cannot be adapted so easily to the changing technology. Same with all the blogs. And this will remain tricky to us as developer - to deal with the ongoing evolvement of the technology.
Michaela
I do! Typo. https://open.sap.com/ I'll leave it there so your comment doesn't look strange.
I totally agree. It is almost impossible to keep everything up to date. I asked if blog posts could be deleted. The answer was: it's very very hard to do that. Plus add to the fact we are all on different versions of SAP. That means some of the "old" blogs that won't work for you. Might work for someone on a lower version of SAP.
It is always going to be a challenge to find that "right" blog post, tutorial, etc. I honestly think you can find what works for you. And remember if you are learning something, most likely you won't code the "BEST" way to begin with. I know I look back at my original code and shudder. And yes, some of it is still being used.