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So I'm just going to throw it out there that I'm a young SAP Developer. I've been known as an "up and comer" in the community (yes, we have a community) until I

by brd 15y ago

So I'm just going to throw it out there that I'm a young SAP Developer. I've been known as an "up and comer" in the community (yes, we have a community) until I decided I was no longer sure I wanted SAP to be my long term career choice. I've done SAP hacking on the side on multiple occasions and I've even made money from a little side project that won a SAP innocentive challenge. For all of you SAP naysayers (I oftentimes find myself among you) the best explanation I've ever heard for why to work in the SAP ecosystem is "If you want to change the world, you should work with the biggest lever you can find". Feel free to ask questions.

kokey 15y ago
Nice to hear. I have a couple of questions: 1. Is the community open to all or do you need to be working for a SAP customer? 2. What's the simplest way to get set up to start tinkering with some SAP stuff? 3. Can you mention some interesting projects that you've done or was done by others?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- brd 15y ago
  1) The community is open to the public: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index -> Not a member? -> Public User 2) The main platform can be downloaded here: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads -> Choose a developer edition Application Server. You can also find and download a trial of gateway, (mobile platform) business objects, (analytic) etc if you look around. I'm actually not so familiar with whats actively available these days. 3) johnappleby is probably better qualified to answer this question at this point but I will tell you to look into SAPlink since its considered the "open source enabler" of SAP http://code.google.com/p/saplink/ http://code.google.com/p/saplink/ you can also check out the enterprise geeks, good light-hearted site for SAP content http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/projects/ http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/projects/ I built a framework for integrating data between SAP's cloud offering and their on premise solutions but after unsuccessfully trying to opensource it in collaboration with SAP (a frustrating experience) I pretty much stopped my community activities. That experience sucked a lot of the SAP enthusiasm out of me but I have watched the company get much better over the last 2 years and I am in talks about getting involved in an another open source project sometime in the next few months.
accountoftheday 15y ago
ftfy: "If you want to change the world, you should sell out to Lucifer".
- msellout 15y ago
  Yes, Foucault would say that you can't change the system from within the system.
smiler 15y ago
Yes, give me tips on _how_ I can get into getting involved with SAP development. I have done plenty of integration with SAP in terms of processing IDOCs and I understand some of the business processes in SAP on the manufacturing side - but how can I go beyond that and understand SAP even more. http://www.sapremotelyaccess.com/ http://www.sapremotelyaccess.com/ - this site provides SAP on a hard drive, do you think it's legal? I'm guessing not!
- brd 15y ago
  Trying to understand SAP processes is an incredibly difficult task to take on, especially as an outsider, and I'm not sure whats available in the form of relevant business modules for a developer edition license which would make it even tougher. My recommendation is to try to get a better understanding of whatever tables are involved in the area you're dabbling in and then create ways to integrate with them. As far as integration goes, IDOCs are definitely a good start. You can also look into exposing things from Netweaver by creating web services using the ICF node http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/Helpdata/EN/55/33a83e370cc414e10000000a114084/frameset.htm http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/Helpdata/EN/55/33a83e37... Theres also gateway and PI for integrating into SAP.
hello_moto 15y ago
I'd like to learn SAP. Where should I begin? what streams are available for me (a beginner with zero knowledge)? SAP ERP? CRM? NetWeaver?
- brd 15y ago
  Much of it depends on what you'd like to do. SAP's bread and butter is the NetWeaver Application Server (the ABAP based platform that holds together most of the core modules SAP provides). Its by far my main area of focus and its the technology I'd recommend any developer focus on if they're interested in SAP. Things have shuffled around so much I couldn't even tell you exactly where to look anymore if you wanted to get more into the 3rd party partnership area. I'd say start with the SAP EcoHub since that is what all the "app store" type SAP stuff is falling under now (or last I checked). There is a lot of traction here as SAP continues to try to ramp up cloud based offering and it could turn out to be a really interesting space if you can find a way to get into it. Theres also the whole data analytics area which involves Business Objects. And for those familiar with Java and not really interested in picking up ABAP, there is the composite environment which is supported by a variety of tools integrated into eclipse. As far as tutorials go, I'm not entirely sure whats out there now but SCN/SDN (the SAP community) has a lot of content in it. If you're looking to learn ABAP you can also check out the tutorials from Thomas Jung: http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2010/07/30/abap-freak-show-abap-tutorial-links/ http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2010/07/30/abap-freak-show-a...
  - hello_moto 15y ago
    Any books to recommend? I might need a few of them. Probably will need one that explains their products so I can get familiar with the field first. How about best practices and agility? Testing, automation, build/deploy strategy, etc... Btw, thank you for the explanation. Greatly appreciated.

by brd 15y ago

kokey 15y ago

Nice to hear. I have a couple of questions: 1. Is the community open to all or do you need to be working for a SAP customer? 2. What's the simplest way to get set up to start tinkering with some SAP stuff? 3. Can you mention some interesting projects that you've done or was done by others?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
brd 15y ago
1) The community is open to the public: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index -> Not a member? -> Public User 2) The main platform can be downloaded here: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads -> Choose a developer edition Application Server. You can also find and download a trial of gateway, (mobile platform) business objects, (analytic) etc if you look around. I'm actually not so familiar with whats actively available these days. 3) johnappleby is probably better qualified to answer this question at this point but I will tell you to look into SAPlink since its considered the "open source enabler" of SAP http://code.google.com/p/saplink/ http://code.google.com/p/saplink/ you can also check out the enterprise geeks, good light-hearted site for SAP content http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/projects/ http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/projects/ I built a framework for integrating data between SAP's cloud offering and their on premise solutions but after unsuccessfully trying to opensource it in collaboration with SAP (a frustrating experience) I pretty much stopped my community activities. That experience sucked a lot of the SAP enthusiasm out of me but I have watched the company get much better over the last 2 years and I am in talks about getting involved in an another open source project sometime in the next few months.

accountoftheday 15y ago

ftfy: "If you want to change the world, you should sell out to Lucifer".

msellout 15y ago
Yes, Foucault would say that you can't change the system from within the system.

smiler 15y ago

Yes, give me tips on _how_ I can get into getting involved with SAP development. I have done plenty of integration with SAP in terms of processing IDOCs and I understand some of the business processes in SAP on the manufacturing side - but how can I go beyond that and understand SAP even more. http://www.sapremotelyaccess.com/ http://www.sapremotelyaccess.com/ - this site provides SAP on a hard drive, do you think it's legal? I'm guessing not!

brd 15y ago
Trying to understand SAP processes is an incredibly difficult task to take on, especially as an outsider, and I'm not sure whats available in the form of relevant business modules for a developer edition license which would make it even tougher. My recommendation is to try to get a better understanding of whatever tables are involved in the area you're dabbling in and then create ways to integrate with them. As far as integration goes, IDOCs are definitely a good start. You can also look into exposing things from Netweaver by creating web services using the ICF node http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/Helpdata/EN/55/33a83e370cc414e10000000a114084/frameset.htm http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/Helpdata/EN/55/33a83e37... Theres also gateway and PI for integrating into SAP.

hello_moto 15y ago

I'd like to learn SAP. Where should I begin? what streams are available for me (a beginner with zero knowledge)? SAP ERP? CRM? NetWeaver?

brd 15y ago
Much of it depends on what you'd like to do. SAP's bread and butter is the NetWeaver Application Server (the ABAP based platform that holds together most of the core modules SAP provides). Its by far my main area of focus and its the technology I'd recommend any developer focus on if they're interested in SAP. Things have shuffled around so much I couldn't even tell you exactly where to look anymore if you wanted to get more into the 3rd party partnership area. I'd say start with the SAP EcoHub since that is what all the "app store" type SAP stuff is falling under now (or last I checked). There is a lot of traction here as SAP continues to try to ramp up cloud based offering and it could turn out to be a really interesting space if you can find a way to get into it. Theres also the whole data analytics area which involves Business Objects. And for those familiar with Java and not really interested in picking up ABAP, there is the composite environment which is supported by a variety of tools integrated into eclipse. As far as tutorials go, I'm not entirely sure whats out there now but SCN/SDN (the SAP community) has a lot of content in it. If you're looking to learn ABAP you can also check out the tutorials from Thomas Jung: http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2010/07/30/abap-freak-show-abap-tutorial-links/ http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2010/07/30/abap-freak-show-a...
- hello_moto 15y ago
  Any books to recommend? I might need a few of them. Probably will need one that explains their products so I can get familiar with the field first. How about best practices and agility? Testing, automation, build/deploy strategy, etc... Btw, thank you for the explanation. Greatly appreciated.