The ABAP wishlist from the community

[Florian]

Hi everyone, a few days ago I asked myself what I want to archive in 2019 and also reflected what I have done in 2018. Thinking about that one part also was what I expect from ABAP and all the related stuff around it.

And because I have some wishes I also thought ask if someone else have a wish which I do not see or even do not see as problem.

And as you may know, a lot of my blogs are designed with bullet points and because I like best practice I stay with it 🙂

 

1 A Boolean – a real Boolean

When starting with programming (long time ago) I can remember one sentence from my teacher. Always use a Boolean when possible. Do not reinvent the wheel. So this is a wish, I also have, because the Char Boolean is something which hurt me again and again. Not because it is named abap_boolean… a lot developers just put things like that in the coding:

IF var = ‘X’. ##notext



…



better example



IF var = c_x.



or even better





IF var = var_x



"(a few lines above)



var_x = c_x.

This wish comes from jwood_bowdark

 

2 Official Editable ALV

Do I have anything to add… this wish comes from jelena.perfiljeva and you got my vote:-)

 

3 Inline Declarations for Function modules (corrected.. Don't drink and write)


Something which might be “easy” to add. This is something I do run in frequently, because I always think it’s there. thomasfiedlermaybe you and your team has some time left next year 😉

christian.drumm want this and a lot others for sure also (including me)

 

4 LHS (Left hand side) Deklarations

Have to be true… never used it in my other languages, because I never realized how awesome the construct is. Never felt a lot of pain to declare different constants, but yes, right now I know how LHS work and what I could do with, I miss it here;-(

This wish comes from raphael.almeida

he also provided a link to learn a more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immutable_object

 

5 A new Dynpro Painter with Events

A huge wish, but hey, think beyond is my personal mindset and I think also the mindset of bjoern.goerke

So, what do I expect from a new painter. We do not need to develop everything new… SAP and Microsoft are partners and Microsoft can learn a lot from SAP, but also SAP can learn from Microsoft. I recommend before developing the dynpropainter have a look into the dotnet-IDE . This painter is just awesome.

The webdynpro painter is better, but still far away from this. So please do a painter for the next generation... maybe with the cloud, for the cloud



This wish comes from me.

 

6 Overload for Methods

That’s something I really really really miss. Way back when I have done my ABAP-Certification the trainer said something like: “We decided to not implement it, because we haven’t seen an advantage here”

This statement wondered me at that time and still wondering about it today. So why do we have optional parameters and returning parameters and more over preferred parameters, but no overloading…

Without overload we mix different things in one method implementation which make code not good to read, not good to enhance and not easy to understand. This should be enough reasons to go for it. Of course, we and I can live without it, but please, whoever is responsible to make it happen.. maybe karl.kessler ?

go_example->do_something( var1 )



go_example->do_something( var1 , var2)



go_example->do_something( var1 , var2, var3)

Again, a wish from me and from some colleagues which aren't around here...

 

7 Console applications with input-parameter support

I cannot write down here how much I love the ABAP-Console. I use it frequently and also do a lot of presentations with it. Not because it's so much better than a write-list. No, it's because it is build in my Eclipse installation and the examples are just there. No need for a second UI... That make presentations so much smoother and of course, if there is a dump... wanted or not it stays exactly where I want it.

Buuuuut, I would love to have also input parameters.. imagine what's possible

"The secret of ABAP island: LeEclipse Revenge", "ABAP Wars" or even "What should I code tomorrow questionary"

ok, more serious, you know what I mean and that would help a lot for mock ups or even see how a coding line works together without having all the UI-Problems to test it more flexible.

My personal "please come true" wish.

 

8 A better comment function


This is something I even did not think about. But after I read it I recognized that it could be really better. Why not have a plugin for eclipse, which give you the chance to navigate direct to the ticket in your ticket system. At least if you use Solman it could be an enchancement to the tooling.

The wish comes from renald.wittwer with this information:

My wish since years: A better comment function. With links to other objects (Mails, Incidents, Word Documents...). I see a changed code, click on the attached document an see the reason of the change.

 

9 RFC and dynpro-support in classes


Ok, now that I'm not sure about wish number 5, maybe this could come true.

A wish by enno.wulff

 

10 SCP-Account for every SAP-System by default

Is this still ABAP-Related.. I don't know, but ABAP is in the cloud, so I want to make use of it. But atm it's not easy to start with, because the customer (also the new ones) need to put extra money on the table, which is perfectly fine for me, but should be direct in the start-price included, to also make use of all the different possibilities to keep the core clean.

A wish from every ABAPer around the world, at least those who want to get the hands dirty with all SAP give us to play with.

 

 

What do you want from ABAP. What have we missed. Comment with your wishlist. Just when we as community share our wishes with SAP there is a chance to bring it in. I realized, that there are wishes I never have thought about and it's awesome to see, that others have thought about problems (and have possible solutions) I never thought how to solve these.

That's what I call an outstanding community. Going beyond while sharing and caring.

Merry christmas, happy holidays and we're going to have an awesome 2019