Modern ABAP Development
Welcome to the chapter on Modern ABAP Development. This chapter focuses on the core of modern application development in SAP—ABAP. We would like to provide you with practical recommendations and insights on how to effectively use ABAP in modern applications, as well as the benefits and opportunities that modern ABAP offers.
SAP published the ABAP Programming Guidelines many years ago to explain fundamental principles that still apply today. The Clean ABAP Style Guide extends these recommendations with methods and principles for modern application development and adapts general clean-code practices to ABAP and SAP development.
ABAP has the advantage that requirements can be implemented quickly with minimal effort and without in-depth programming knowledge, provided they are not overly complex. Thus, the implementation of requirements in ABAP can be guided by business needs without numerous intermediate steps. This business-process-oriented use of ABAP is widespread within companies, and many ABAP programmers have entered the ABAP world through customizing, creating simple reports, debugging, implementing user exits, and so on.
In 2025, when many companies have already made the transition to S/4HANA or are about to do so, the new technologies, methods, and tools are not yet in use to the same extent as traditional ABAP. ABAP development is facing a transformation that will be challenging for both developers and companies. The guide in general, and this chapter specifically regarding ABAP, is intended to assist you with this transformation. In this chapter, we provide insights and recommendations on the following topics in ABAP development:
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Architecture and design of modern ABAP developments
Here you will find out why it is important and has many advantages to structure ABAP developments in packages, to use the package functionalities and what you need to know to implement our recommendations. -
Design and design of modern SAP applications
The application of object orientation is an essential factor in creating modern, robust and adaptable software. In this chapter you will find our recommendations for implementing OO well and efficiently and why the use of object orientation and good structuring of functionalities in classes offers added value. -
Clean and modern code
In addition to the higher-level structures in the form of package designs and the structuring of the application in objects, the ABAP code represents the function of the application. The code is created once, read, extended, changed and reviewed many times over the life cycle. Therefore, investing in code that is easy to read, understandable and clear pays off. The application of the Clean code principles and application of modern ABAP statements and functions is essential to create future-proof applications and operate them efficiently. -
RESTful Application Programming Model - RAP
With the RESTful Application Programming Model, after several evolutionary steps, SAP has now published a stable and mature programming model that offers many options, brings many advantages and offers developers a good framework for building modern applications.
The recommendations in the previous sections apply to all developments in SAP, but their implementation is a good basis for being prepared for application development with RAP.
Recommendations for RAP and the procedure for developing RAP applications can be found in this chapter.
The role of the organization
For an efficient transformation of the organization and the developers to modern SAP development, it is not enough to deal with the technical aspects. A success factor is good framework conditions and enabling the development teams. The organization plays a key role here.
Development specifications, guidelines, principles, manuals, and control mechanisms are important as standards and guidelines. However, these alone are not sufficient to bring the techniques and methods of modern software development in the ABAP environment into everyday development work and thus “into practice”.
To achieve this, entities must be established within the development organization that, in addition to defining these guidelines, also ensure their implementation in daily work. At higher levels, these can include architecture boards, review committees, and central units within the development organization. At lower levels, these are responsible individuals such as lead developers and architects who are closely involved with the developers and their daily work. Otherwise, the aforementioned organizational measures would function as “toothless tigers”—the organizational guidelines and actual work would diverge significantly from one another.
In addition to governance aspects, the development organization must also focus intensively on training and upskilling developers and creating incentives to try out and apply new approaches in daily work, as well as to rethink and adapt existing practices. The developers’ interest and motivation regarding new topics are key factors in ensuring that these measures lead to successful upskilling of the development organization.
An important element here is the appreciation shown by developers for the fact that applications are implemented with new technologies, even if this often requires a longer development time at the beginning or does not always work smoothly. Only if it is recognized and valued in the organization that developers or development teams continue their training, familiarize themselves with new technologies and methods and implement them, will sustainable change take place. Only if the general conditions are right will you be able to benefit from the advantages and resulting positive effects, some of which you will find in the Architecture and Structuring in ABAP Development section.
Detailed and valuable recommendations on the topics of organization and general conditions can be found in chapter Organization.
Target group of the chapter
We primarily address the ABAP developers and people involved in the ABAP development. However, we would also like to address decision-makers and managers of development teams, as the ABAP transformation requires framework conditions to be successful in order to be successful on this journey. And we would like to create motivation in the company by showing you concrete practical recommendations and advantages.