Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
SAP tools and Programming
SAP's ABAP Development Workbench and SAP NWDS are the integrated and full-featured devel-
opment environments for custom development or enhancement of SAP standard functionality in
ABAP and Java/J2EE respectively. SAP customers can use either of these environments to rapidly
configure the various aspects of SAP applications like the look and feel, behavior, and workflow.
They are examples of interactive enterprise application builder that enable definition, creation, and
modification via visual manipulation of all of its application components and their services.
The importance of referring to the original SAP NetWeaver documentation cannot
be overemphasized. What we have presented in this chapter are the essential details
of the various components of SAP development tools and programming environ-
ment. However, this chapter is not intended as a replacement for the colossal amount
of instructive documentation, guidelines, checklists, templates, samples, questionnaires, and
so forth provided and recommended for use by SAP. Those are well-proven instruments, and
for an actual project, it is highly recommended that you procure the version of the documen-
tation corresponding to the version of your installation and use it in conjunction with the
implementation project.
11.1 ABAP Custom Development
11.1.1 ABAP Genesis
The programming language ABAP originated in the 1980s and continues to be enhanced and
developed with every release of SAP R/3. All R/3 business applications are developed in ABAP.
ABAP has its origin in the report generation programming language developed for R/2 that
enabled the creation of simple print lists. That language has expanded over time into a full-fledged
development environment called the Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP)
language, which originally stood for Allgemeine Businessprozess Aufbereitungsprogramme.
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