What does the future look like for ABAP developers?

The future of ABAP (advanced business application programming) is seemingly on every SAP developer's mind. No area of SAP has been harder hit by technical changes than ABAP development, but ABAP is far from dead.

Developers point to ominous signs:

-->All new SAP programs are written in Java (not true)

-->The NetWeaver CE (composition environment) is an exclusively Java-based environment (true)

-->the NetWeaver Developer Studio is also almost exclusively Java-based (true)

When we take the impact of global outsourcing into account as well, we can safely say that it's been a rockier road for ABAP programmers than for any other SAP skill set.

SAP customers don't want to find themselves with a development team that lacks the skills to implement the latest SAP functionality, and SAP programmers are facing enough challenges without having to worry that their skills won't be needed on project sites.