The #SAPRiver Of Dreams

Eindhoven, March 7, SAP CodeJam on SAP River

SAP specialists Inbal Zilberman and Yoram Hod travelled to Eindhoven to share the passion and enthusiasm in aCodeJam on SAP River with us. Inbal already wrote about her experiences in a summary blog.

Is SAP River the new ABAP? Join a local CodeJam or apply for a free account on sap-river.com and follow the tutorials to find out yourself. Initially it might be a bit scary, but the tutorials will lead the way, no need to have hydrophobia. Let’s recall a song by Billy Joel – The River Of Dreams:

To the river so deep
I must be lookin' for something

The SAP River might look deep or filled with wild water, but as SAP Developers we are looking for something, the future of SAP Development. No need to be afraid – just jump into the water and swim!

Inbal kicks off the event	Yoram shows the code
Here we go, let the fun begin	Coding and discussing
CodeJam food, thanks SAP!	Coding while eating or Eating while coding?
Yoram explains	Jan Penninkhof going into details
Recording the HANA Cafe NL podcast	Recording the HANA Cafe NL podcast

More pictures in our album.

HANA Cafe NL podcast

At the end of the event HANA Café NL sat together with Inbal Zilberman and Yoram Hod to record a podcast episode (0:47-18:44).

A short summary

What is SAP River? And why does it attract lots of people to join?

SAP River is the new definition language for business applications and the first compilation target is HANA (surprise ;-). With River you can focus on what you want to achieve, describe your application without getting into the details on how it’s done. It is to dramatically simplify the way we develop applications on top of HANA.

Will SAP River compete with current HANA toolset?

SAP River is more a design time concept, and on the background it will still generate the HANA artefacts. There are no penalties at runtime. So it’s not a matter of competition but an extension as it is now easier to describe and build your application.

What about the old River, are there any similarities?

Just the name and the idea behind it are similar. The old River was pattern and model based and by that extension/customization was hard to realize. The SAP River language helps you to do whatever you want. Focus on business logic.

What is the recommendation for ABAP developers? Start with River or with HANA native features?

In one year it will for sure be River. Today it may still be a baby, but growing very fast. Start with it and sometimes step out into HANA features.

Will there be more compilation targets?

SAP River is not HANA specific, the development team keeps it very clean. There is no block to compile it to other languages, River development team intends to open specs so that SAP or the community can compile it to other languages.

Risk if you know River but not into HANA artefacts?

SAP River will generate all HANA artefacts for you, but good knowledge of the basics comes in handy.

Is SAP River including native aspects of HANA?

There needs to be a way, from the beginning, to break out to existing code like JavaScript or HANA stored procedures. That allows SAP River to be used in extension scenarios as well, not only in greenfield projects.

Final words

We've seen the future and got enthusiastic!

Thank you:

• Inbal and Yoram for expertise and passion
• SAP for CodeJam event and food
• Ciber for hosting the event
• All participants!

Also published on SCN.