Dealing with object locks in an SAP development environment is a major source of frustration for developers. The frustration grows when one developer is focused on creating new features while another is racing to fix a bug in the same object. In this blog post, we'll take a real-world view of the object lock issue and discuss the challenges two developers face when they must tackle this headache together. And we won’t disappoint, we will also explore a better way to handle such situations, promoting smoother collaboration and more efficient development processes.

Scenario

Imagine Juergen is assigned to enhance the code below by adding new fields to the report. Excited to improve the report, he starts working on the changes and expects to complete them by the end of the day.

REPORT z_material_by_type.

PARAMETERS: p_type  TYPE mtart OBLIGATORY,
            p_plant TYPE werks_d OBLIGATORY.

SELECT mara~matnr, mara~mtart
  FROM mara JOIN marc ON marc~matnr = mara~matnr
  WHERE marc~werks = '1010'
  AND mtart = @p_type
INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_materials).

LOOP AT lt_materials INTO DATA(ls_materials).
  WRITE: / |Material Number: { ls_materials-matnr } Material Type: { ls_materials-mtart }|.
ENDLOOP.

Just when Juergen is about to finish, he receives an urgent email from Christian, a colleague, about a critical bug in the same code. Now, Juergen has to delay his task to address this high-priority issue. The two developers exchange frustrated emails and decide on the best course of action. Ultimately, Juergen reverts his changes and lets Christian fix the bug.

REPORT z_material_by_type.

PARAMETERS: p_type  TYPE mtart OBLIGATORY,
            p_plant TYPE werks_d OBLIGATORY.

SELECT mara~matnr, mara~meins, mara~mtart, marc~werks
  FROM mara JOIN marc ON marc~matnr = mara~matnr
  WHERE marc~werks = '1010'
  AND mtart = @p_type
INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_materials).

LOOP AT lt_materials INTO DATA(ls_material).
  WRITE: / |Plant: { ls_material-werks } Material Number: { ls_material-matnr } Material Type: { ls_material-mtart } Base UoM: { ls_material-meins }|.
ENDLOOP.

This situation causes delays and frustration for both developers. Juergen has to inform the user who requested the new feature about the holdup, and Christian has to test and deploy the bug fix just before a planned vacation.

Fortunately for Christian, the fix was quick, but he was under so much pressure he forgot to update Juergen until he returned from his vacation.

  WHERE marc~werks = p_plant

Weeks later, Juergen finally gets to resume his work, but the entire process has been disrupted.

Lost Productivity = Lost $

Every ABAP developer has likely experienced this scenario, and it's far from ideal. The shared development system leads to object locks, which in turn cause wasted time and effort, impacting the productivity of development teams.

A better way

A more efficient solution is for developers to work in isolated environments that eliminate object locks. This approach streamlines the development process and results in happier, more productive developers. While some coordination may still be necessary, automating the process can minimize disruptions and save time and resources.

Isolated Environments

While we don't delve into the specifics of isolated environments in this post, we have addressed this topic in other posts. The key advantage of these systems is their ephemeral nature, which allows them to be active for only a few hours at a time, unlike traditional SAP systems.

https://www.nuveplatform.com/blog/teched-2022

The productivity gains achieved through parallel development and the prevention of lost productivity make isolated environments an appealing solution for overcoming object lock challenges in SAP development.