Thoughts on SAP CodeConnect 2024

[BenPatterson]

It was such a privilege to attend Code Connect  (un)conference this year in Germany. And I was proud to represent rev-trac with the honour of providing some sponsorship of this developer led and focused initiative. Being a SAP partner that develops solutions both on, and for SAP technologies, it was a great fit for us. Our team on the ground included our lead Java (Srinath) and ABAP (Adam) engineers and also one of our key CAP engineers (Nick). 

Nick, Srinath, Adam and myself excited for the first day

In this blog, I wanted to share the feeling of being there and some of my thoughts and reflections. I encourage you to check out the session themselves which are available to view from the respective sites (below).

Overview

The conference is a convergence of three individual events, re≼CAP, UI5con & ABAPconf. And it was interesting how they were combined, but each one had its own individual flavour and style. I think in future some of the logistical aspects would do well to align (e.g. ticketing, conference app, etc), but that individuality did create a sense of authenticity for each one.

The location was at the SAP campus at St Leon-Rot, near SAP's headquarters. And although this was somewhat remote, there was sense of being invited to SAP's home and experiencing some real heart-felt hospitality.

The first day started with a CAP code jam hosted by, none other than the CAP advocate extraordinaire DJ Adams himself. Unfortunately I was not able to attend that session, but all reports were expectedly praiseworthy. This was a fitting way to kick things off, followed by a meal at a community based Italian restaurant, which I did manage to get to. This was a pleasant evening and set the tone of welcoming and relaxed interaction.

Being an on-site event, the most important factor are the people. The attendees represented a great variety of backgrounds and experiences, as well as a good representation from the SAP technical product teams. Above all was the general attitude of curiosity, adventure and sense of passion for the technologies of their respective crafts. Another trait that stood out was a sense of honesty and openness regarding the challenges and concerns that exist out there on each of these frontiers.

The first conference day started with re≼CAP, setting the pace with a barrage of new ideas and features. Some of the high level takeaways:

• The plugin framework, leading to a more standardised way to provide or receive additional CAP functionality
• Embedded analytics
• Logging and telemetry and overall improvements in Ops support
• Advancements in draft handing, as well as some challenges poignantly raised by Sergei Haller
• Documentation - it was great to see the CAPire team there actively listening and taking feedback from users
• Approaches to robust Node.js lifecycles presented by Mauricio Lauffer 

we love CAP

UI5con was the next day following closely in reCAPs footsteps. Some big topics that I came across were:

• Web Components, Web Components, Web Components. This was a big focus, and for good reason, its great tech and I am keen to see how it works its way into the entire UI5 solution going forward
• New advancements with analytics and hierarchy views
• Testing! Such an important (and often under-appreciated) topic. The overview provided by Simon Coen on this was exceptional, providing a solid framework for providing full coverage for you UI5 stack.

UI5con!

And last but definitely not least was ABAPconf, bringing the series to a close. Here we also saw large amount of excitement and new ideas. As is tradition, there is a German speaking component, which I appreciated in the introduction, but for the four sessions held in German only (with some English slides) I felt that this somewhat detracted from the inclusiveness compared to the other two days. Some highlights were:

• More detail on implementing clean core on stack, essentially moving items from tier 3 'Classic', or 'Dirty' ABAP and separating out items that can't be implemented with the currently exposed ABAP API objects into a separate tagged package. This provides a staging ground for migration that gives a clear scope of the overlap or exposure to non released items, perhaps in a sense an anti-corruption layer.
• ABAP package manager - an inspirational call to innovate towards open source with ABAP
• More detailed approaches to testing was also a welcome aspect here
• One thing I missed at this one was interaction with the experts via the meet the expert booth

Willkommen - abap conf!

Each of the three conference days concluded with a dinner on the delightful campus grounds with almost a carnival like atmosphere, and steady flow of excellent craft beer. Not to mention that we were blessed with some fantastic weather. This aspect really stitched the conference together with that sense of hospitality and provided ample time to connect and reflect on the days experiences.

Enjoying the food, beer and conversations at CodeConnect

General reflections

Overall I would have to say the key positive would be the passion and energy on the floor. This was of course varied throughout, but in some cases this was truly inspirational.

The other aspect was the format (esp. reCAP and UI5con). The sessions were short (about 20min) and were often in series or themes, and this allowed a very flexible way to interact, by just going to one presentation and then chat to the experts at the booth or dive deep and go to three talks in a related series.

The SAP community representation lead by Svea was also a real plus.

I would suggest that perhaps re≼CAP could be spread over more than one day as there was just so much to dive into. But I can appreciate that organising such events is huge undertaking, so it’s a big ask. Perhaps some sessions could sneak into the code jam day.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and thanks to all those who organised it, your hard work was much appreciated.

Best regards,

Ben.

PS, for more thoughts on this by a fellow Antipodean, head on over to blog by @mauriciolauffer 's reflections on the event as well.