Correct Approach for mastering SAP R3 and ABAP

I have been working on SAP technology for the last 2.5 years. As there were so many technical concepts, I couldn't get a single source where I can learn about everything related to it. I didn't get the confidence of mastering all the technical 开发者_JS百科concepts.

Please help me out if you have faced such an experience and how you overcame it. Suggest some books or a methodology you followed which may be helpful.

Note: I have already worked in Java/J2EE. I am confident enough in mastering the concepts.

Obviously the (or rather a) correct approach would be one that works for you, the conclusion being that you don't know whether the approach was correct until you've tried it. :-)

Enough philosophy - my suggestions would be:

• Learn how to read the SAP Online documentation. That's a bit different from reading other documentation - the SAP docs are littered with information about legacy techniques that you don't really need. Learn to identify and skip these parts - you can always come back later.

• Develop a knowledge of the data dictionary. It's really at the heart of all things, and if you can't navigate there and read the structures, you're lost. Start reading the chapter in the online docs at http://help.sap.com/saphelp_webas620/helpdata/en/cf/21ea0b446011d189700000e8322d00/frameset.htm.

• Read http://help.sap.com/saphelp_webas620/helpdata/EN/fc/eb3138358411d1829f0000e829fbfe/frameset.htm. I know that's a lot of stuff, but it's available for free, and almost everything is in there. Again, do a "fast indexing run" first to get a feeling of what's inside there, then dig into the basic concepts. ABAP at its lowest level isn't fundamentally different from other imperative / procedural languages.

• Follow the example programs (transaction code ABAPDOCU). Learn how to use the debugger (vital!) and understand what's going on in the demo programs.

• Once you've got a mental model of the basic language, take a look at ABAP Objects. If you already know Java, there should be no problem with the basic concepts, but there are a few specialties.

• Feel free to ask if you run into something you don't understand.

There is no single source of information that will provide you with everything you have to know, especially since some of the knowledge is very specific to the context (FI, MM, IS-H, ...).