Product Description

If you'd like to learn how to program your first executable ABAP applications, then this book is your ideal companion. Whether or not you're already familiar with another programming language, you'll benefit from straightforward explanations and step-by-step instruction to efficiently master the basics of programming business-critical applications with ABAP.

Comprehensive, easy-to-follow descriptions introduce you to each of the relevant concepts and an ongoing practical scenario that continues throughout the book ensures that you familiarize yourself with all major areas of ABAP development. Numerous step-by-step procedures, screenshots, and solution tips are employed by the authors to describe procedural and object-oriented language elements in a clear and easy-to-understand way. In each chapter, you'll further extend the sample application, allowing you to build the skills needed to easily reproduce the development of a comprehensive ABAP application - including all of its intricate details.

Highlights

• Getting Started with the System
• Object Navigator
• Procedural Language Elements
• Database Accesses
• User Interfaces and Screen Input and Output
• Object-Oriented Language Elements
• Software Architecture and Software Design
• SAP Programming Guidelines and Tools

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409204 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 477 pages

About the Author
Günther Färber and Julia Kirchner are shareholders of NEXONTIS IT GmbH, a German consulting firm that specializes in the field of new software technologies and business applications in the SAP environment. Both authors have many years of experience in ABAP programming as well as in designing and providing ABAP training and workshops.

Customer Reviews

Good starter
As someone with no prior ABAP experience - but with extensive software development experience - I found this book to be a pretty good primer.

The early chapters give you enough to get up and going - although there is a certain lack of depth to most topics. Being someone with previous software development experience and having gotten used to the PC-style books which encourage 'doing' and experimentation, this aspect of the book wasn't too much of an inconvenience. Your mileage may vary.

The book also gave me enough information to navigate around a very unfamiliar system, and more importantly, a starting point for further exploration. There were, however, numerous times when I found myself asking why something was done a certain way or how the various parts fit together and how they interacted with one another - no such answers to these questions are to be found in this book.

As such, I certainly wouldn't classify it as a 'university-type' of textbook - wherein you get that solid foundation on which to build upon. In fact, I am thinking about buying another book with more 'meat' on it - if only I could find one (any recommendations? and I'm not talking about a reference manual).

That being said, I'm not so sure if the previous point is a fair one. Having just re-read the back cover blurb - IMHO, it meets the goals it lays out for itself.

So why four stars out of five?

First and most importantly - the book needs a good English speaking editor (in fact, all the SAP books I have so far purchase have this same failing). I've been developing for over two decades now, and having to learn ABAP has finally impressed upon me the need for good communication. Until now, I've never realized how lucky I've been that software development is a predominantly English experience - I now have a much healthier respect for developers who are non-native English speakers. Technical material can be highly obtuse at times - throw in a bad translation or a total disregard for grammer and the obtuse becomes downright cryptic. While this book is by far one of the more readable ABAP books - it too had a couple of places that required more that a few re-reads (which IMHO is highly problematic since it's a basic-level book).

Second, if I remember correctly, Exercise 5.2 is 47 pages long. Really now. Is this any way to impart knowledge? Maybe. IMHO, a good teacher would've broken it down into more digestable pieces.