Category > Articles

I hate magic numbers

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Those who work in SAP think it’s normal for everything to be represented by obscure codes that mean nothing. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Stop it! Create human-readable codes please.

Set a baseline for your ATC

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Did you know that you can set a starting point for ATC and, thanks to that, be able to run ATC in legacy code?

Kintsugi

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When a porcelain object breaks in Japan, sometimes instead of throwing it away, they mend it. But they don’t mend it just any old way; they mend it with gold. This technique is called Kintsugi.

Why always MODIFY?

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It is a common practice in ABAP to use MODIFY instead of INSERT and UPDATE. Do you do it too? Tell me why. Is it laziness? Is it fear? Is it just a matter of “whatever”? Or is it more like “screw it”?

On broken windows

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The broken window theory says that if a window in a building is broken and not repaired quickly, people will be tempted to throw stones and break the other windows.

It's normal to not get it right the first time

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In the ABAP world, the rule is to do it once and never touch it again. Once done, forever frozen. What nonsense.

Where? Who? What? How?

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You’ve been asked to create a new feature. You’re ready to build it. But hold your horses. Before you start, I suggest you find answers to a few questions. Finding a good answer to each of them is fundamental to ensuring that what you build is solid and elegant.

No constant context changes in Eclipse ADT

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Every time you switch contexts, you lose the thread slightly. It’s human nature. So the less you do, the better.

In Eclipse the compiler is not lazy

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Still using SAPGUI instead of Eclipse ADT? Get ready to be made fun of.

Languages shape thought

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I read somewhere that Eastern mathematicians tend to solve a different kind of mathematical problem than Western mathematicians do.

YAGNI

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You Ain’t Gonna Need It means Do what you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just kidding. Not really.

Fix prefixes

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It’s very easy to mess up with object names in SAP. I recently found a way to minimize that problem: set rules to fix per-package prefixes for certain object types.

I package everything that moves

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I obsessively package everything that moves.

Undo with abapGit

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Did you know that you can finally make radical changes to a development without fear because there is a simple way to undo all those changes?

The 3 exception parents

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OO exceptions always need a parent. They always have to inherit from somebody. And ABAP gives them 3 alternatives.