Eclipse ADT vs SAP GUI Editor
source link: https://blogs.sap.com/2022/06/24/eclipse-adt-vs-sap-gui-editor/
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Eclipse ADT vs SAP GUI Editor
A discussion has sprung up on the relative merits of ADT vs the SAP GUI editor at the end of this question: https://answers.sap.com/questions/765841/is-editing-enhancements-with-adteclipse-still-not-.html
Since it’s at the end of a post concerning enhancements in ADT, I thought it should be a blog. I did suggest this to Prasenjit Bist who posted the argument that SAP GUI Editor is superior. But he didn’t want to.
Before going further, I recommend this excellent blog https://blogs.sap.com/2019/11/20/se80-adt-whatever-just-wash-your-hands/ from Jelena Perfiljeva – (spookily prophetic about washing your hands, since the blog was posted november 2019… ).
So, I now present the discussion so far, in the hope of attracting a wider community discussion.
After so many years still we have to use SAP GUI and SAP GUI still looks more polished than the ADT. I don’t understand why SAP needed ADT and wanted to kill GUI. Sometimes I feel SAP like the smart geek who has lost self confidence because of the bullies. ADT because others use it, the new college goers use it… It can not be a valid excuse when your own tool or the IDE is million times superior to the Eclipse ADT. SAP GUI is million times ahead of any comparable UI platform as well. SAP u need to have more belief just dont join the so called cool guys gals group have self belief you are the coolest dude. Either make ADT feature complete or just start investing back in GUI. I don’t see a single merit of using ADT except for the fact that SAP on purpose has locked down certain activities at GUI side.
Really you should write a blog.
Advantages of ADT (in no particular order)
1. A widely known development environment, so the learning curve for many is vastly reduced.
2. Local versioning (every time you save, a local version is cut). This is very useful when you realise that you’ve gone the wrong way and want to revert to what you save at 10 this morning. Within SAP GUI, you’d have to manually create a temporary version each create.
3. When your network connection goes down, you don’t lose your work. Important for remote workers!
4. Code completion is vastly superior.
5. You can have many windows open at a time.
6. You can compare entire classes/interfaces between local version, transport versions, and system – even systems that aren’t connected to each other.
7. Unit testing is superior to that in SAP GUI
8. It’s a modern IDE – SAP GUI manifestly isn’t
9. It’s easier to enhance than SAP Gui (you can even write your own plugins)
10. Errors in coding are flagged up immediately
I switched from SAP GUI to Eclipse years ago. Frankly I’m baffled as to why there is so much resistance. I’ve been developing ABAP for over 20 years (SAP GUI and Eclipse), and I think I’m qualified to say that any disadvantages are utterly outweighed by the advantages. I find development faster and easier. SAP GUI is clunky. Although I’ll concede the debugger is more powerful.
Matthew Billingham Good idea but no thanks. Glad that you love ADT good for you. But IMO any person who writes code on a daily basis will agree with me. Long loading time, freezes and feature incomplete. As I said already just for the sake of familarity SAP doesn’t not have to kills something that is superior. I am from Computer Engineering background and I know Eclipse is good , I wrote Java code; but for ABAP SAP GUI is perfect and everytime you have to open the embedded GUI – I hope will remind you as I said ADT is crap.
I am not offering any resistance I am using Eclipse ADT since 2017. And I still find it feature incomplete. I repeat feature incomplete. Error come up immediately really, I find it too hard to read in the cumbersome manner it is displayed.
It’s a modern IDE – SAP GUI manifestly isn’t – So that was exactly the kind of ideology I personally dislike and that was the point of my initial comment that you ignored. Just something is modern is not better. ABAP is 39 years old then let’s dump ABAP now. Eclipse has been around for too long as well. Make ADT better simple that is what I wish for. The VS -ABAP plugins is a great example.
You can have many windows open at a time.- Well when you need it the most the IDE freezes 
Code completion is vastly superior.- Depends how you see it but still all the pros you counted does not weigh heavily on the cons and that is the burden of evidence against the Eclipse ADT.
Again I have no resistance to anything- I do not belong to that camp so please do not target me, nor I am what you guys like to call the kind of people who do not like to upgrade ABAPsaurs or things like that I have been 3 decades + a couple of years on this beautiful planet and I love to learn but because my time is limited and I want to finish my work fast go home and have fun with family I wish for good working tools and that is what my complaint is. Have a great day and I just tried to make a point I ofcourse have not seen the world or amassed so much experience like you.. I just have been writing ABAP since 2007 Thank you Sir have a gr8 day.
There are lots of people who write code on a daily basis and who prefer ADT, sorry. Why do you need to say that something is either good or crap. Why not describing what is good, what is perfectible. There are some big advantages, big drawbacks, in ADT, like in SAP GUI. Just use ADT for tasks with big advantages like refactoring, unit testing, and SAP GUI for tasks with big advantages like some tasks in debugging, SAP GUI screen debugging, etc.
Sandra – What about BOPF tools, SEGW tools what about the ease of accessing any transaction, what about the need to open GUI for many cases where the ADT can not open the data browser. What about the endless transactions not supported. I don’t know about you but I have to unfortunately write a lot of code that is more than writing classes and I find it very disturbing so do my numerous colleagues. Even something as mundane as debugging, debugger scripting is so much easily done in the GUI. What about the fact that Eclipse ADT freezes, has a much more loading time, What about the fact that even for RAP UI the test scope is limited I can not go and check all associations etc in the UI preview. It would be a long list. yes there are some nice cool things as well like you said refactoring yes, something as simple as delete unused variables and so much but can it replace GUI – NO as on 23-06-222 it has not managed to do it yet and the embedded GUI is still there.
Also I guess you did not get my point- I am against the point that SAP has to change it’s own inhouse things just to attract people from the outside. If your product is good, people will learn it you don’t have to make a JAVA version of ABAP to attract new talent. Eclipse is good but ADT lacks features,. What is the problem in accepting that or let some one speak if s/he does not like it? In any case SAP is not going to roll back, right so just chill and ignore my comments if you don’t like I am just venting my frustration after a day when I spent so much time looking and doing different things on 2 different IDEs.
As a developer I don’t appreciate using 2 tools it’s annoying, impacts my workflow and that too when the company claims the one I find superior is on the way out. Please do not take it personally but I have a conclusion that some people have a psychology that everything SAP had like tools the language is so “not cool” and let’s be cool like Java or something else. Again kindly do not take it personally I just took the opportunity to share what I feel.
Thank you!!
The discussion continues below…
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