You have been working in ABAP for too long.

[Rashid_Javed]

You know you have been working as ABAP developer for too long when

1.    You press F3 in internet explorer to go to previous page.

2.    You start writing your ‘Hello world’ Java program and put a . at end of each statement.

3.    Regardless of what IDE you are using, whenever it is time to compile code, you press Ctrl+F3

4.    You wonder why other Windows Applications does not contain those three colored buttons [Green (Back), Yellow (Exit) and Red (Cancel)]

5.    On a long weekend you enthusiastically start building your first VB app and then stop at form design window wondering where are PBO and PAI modules.

6.    You create your first Visual composer model and name it Z_anything. It could be your first guided procedure, webdynpro application or just any java program; doesn’t matter. Any custom development has to be Z.

7.    Regardless of programming language or Database package used, you name customer number as KUNNR, vendor as LIFNR and employee as PERNR.

8.    You try to start work on this ‘new’ Object oriented ABAP but keep getting coding errors inside your classes because you always define your internal tables with header line.

9.    Although you had done it in your student life (in C most probably), NOW whenever you try use Arrays, you wonder why index starts at 0 and not at 1.

10.    After years of debugging of SAP standard programs, you found subroutine names such as beleg_lesen and kunden_pruefen perfectly normal and wonder at those new ABAP recruits who always complain about strange program/form name and cryptic comments inside code.

11.    You get into heated discussion with your ex-oracle-guru-now-turned-abaper colleagues about the benefits of ‘ENDSELECT’ statement.

12.    You have to fight this urge to check Sy-Subrc after every statement regardless of whatever programming language you are using.

13.    You are late to pick up your kid from school; you call him/her and tell “Wait up to 300 seconds.”

14.    In your diary all your dead relatives expiration dates are recorded as ENDDA, further more, you record all birthdays as BEGDA.

15.    You had an upset stomach last night. You sit at your desk almost sleeping. When your boss asked what happenend, instinctively you reply ‘Too many short dumps’.

16.    You explain ‘Move’ statement to a group of ABAP newbies, and when someone comments that this is not a ‘move’ but more like a ‘copy’ operation(because the source variable retains its value), you just stand still in bewilderment wondering why you never noticed that.

17.    Your favorite ABAP command is “GENERATE SUBROUTINE POOL” and you knew in your heart how much potential this command has.

18.    You very seriously tell your ABAP newbies that in addition to program types ‘Class-Pool’, ‘Function-Pool’ and ‘Type-Pool’, in next ECC release SAP is going to have a generic program type to cover all these. That would be called ‘Gene Pool’.   (Too bad nobody laughs, in fact they ask about the release date.)

19.    In your RFC function modules, you deliberately use parameter names such as DATUM, UZEIT, MATNR, BELNR…. Instead of Date, Time, MaterialNo, DocumentNo.  You watch in amusement as the frustrated interface programmers of web applications section try to remember what the meaning of each parameter is. If someone complains, you remind them that’s this is SAP standard.

20.    Your colleague is getting married (finally) and as a wedding gift you give him “ABAP Object by Horst Keller”.

Did I mention about the . at the end of each statement.