Chat with ABAP Book Authors
Earlier today I learned that ABAP is a COBOL-like language used to customize SAP’s business applications. After seeing a Twittered reminder, I decided to attend a Second Life chat about the book, which is called Next Generation ABAP Development . The meeting took place in SAP’s Community Office on the Silicon City island.
I listened to Thomas Jung and Rich Heilman talk about the process of deciding to write the book.
Thomas wrote the outline and then Rich decided to step up to the plate committed to take on his fair share of the writing. They each wrote chapter drafts and traded them back and forth, completing the entire book in about 3 months. Rich spent about 5 hours per weekday on the book, and more on the weekends. Thomas was working at a client site for 2 out of the 3 months, so the book gave him something to do during the evening.
One thing that impressed me about SAP is the degree to which their site and the chat itself referenced their developer community. This should bode well for their Second Life presence, since person-to-person connections and community development are probably the true “killer app” of Second Life.
The book has been selling well, clocking in 1613 sales for the month of June, making it the best-selling SAP Press book for that month.
They also discussed SAP Link, an ABAP code repository built by the SAP developer community.
Here are some pictures: