Introduction
We are excited to announce that we have started working on a VS Code extension for ABAP. We understand that the community has high expectations, and we want to communicate transparently about what you can expect from ABAP Development Tools for VS Code. In this article, we will share details about the scope of the first release and what’s planned for the future.
See related article: Behind the Design: How We Transformed the ABAP Development Tools Architecture to Support More IDEs
Primary focus will be support for the ABAP Cloud Development Model
The goal is to fully support all developer flows related to the ABAP Cloud development model. It is not planned to support classic programming models such as Dynpro or Web Dynpro.
Scope of the First Release: Focus on RAP UI Services
The primary focus of the initial release is the development of RAP UI services. One of the biggest requests from our users has been to bring SAP Fiori frontend development and RAP UI service development into the same tool. We know this group of developers will benefit the most when all development tasks can be performed within VS Code. That’s why this is the starting point.
First Release Targeted at Early Adopters
The initial set of object types will include everything needed to build a RAP UI service from scratch, along with the basic develop/test/debug flow that VS Code supports. This includes editors for classes and interfaces. We plan to ship around 12+ object types. However, for many tasks outside of development flows for creating RAP UI services, developers will still need to switch between ABAP Development Tools for Eclipse and ABAP Development Tools for VS Code.
ABAP developer tools for VS Code will gradually catch up with ABAP developer tools for Eclipse one Client Release at a Time
It took us 16 years to reach the current feature scope of the Eclipse plug-in. The technical implementation of our VS Code extension uses an architecture that allows us to reuse much of the existing Eclipse codebase. However, we must migrate all existing tools to the Language Server Protocol and design/build the necessary UIs on the VS Code side. While we expect a much faster development timeline, this transition will not happen overnight but gradually with each new client release.
Same Backend Support as ABAP Development Tools for Eclipse
Since we are reusing our existing codebase, all features available for a given release in Eclipse can potentially be offered in VS Code. We plan to support all releases down to SAP NetWeaver 7.3 EHP1 SP04.
Early Release Means You Can Help Shape the Roadmap
Just like the Eclipse plug-in, which was not feature-complete when we started, we will actively engage with the ABAP developer community to help us prioritize the features you miss the most.
File-based development first
As the name already implies Visual Studio Code is a code editor optimized for editing source code files. Additionally, all AI tools work best in a file-based environment. In order, to ensure that ABAP developers get the most out of VS Code in combination with AI tools all object type editing is completely file based utilizing the ABAP file formats.
SAP Joule for Developers Features Coming to VS Code
We are planning to bring the Joule for developers features to VS Code, including predictive code completion and other intelligent development capabilities.
ABAP Development Tools for VS Code Unlock Access to Cutting-Edge AI Tools
One of the reasons ABAP in VS Code is so appealing is that most cutting-edge AI development innovations happen in VS Code. Thanks to the new extension, you can leverage the available AI VS Code extensions. Please note that ABAP development objects are still stored on the server side. The file system had to be implemented using the “virtual workspace” technology. Not all AI tools currently support this file system, so compatibility may vary.
Bluesky
