Young developer choosing between ABAP and .NET

Young developer choosing between ABAP and .NET

My daughter has received an offer from SAP. She has a choice of working on ABAP or .NET programming. She graduated a couple of years back with computer science major and her experience has mostly been on server side web-related technologies like Microsoft ASP etc. My question is, should she opt for ABAP or .NET?

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This is probably not the politically correct answer on an SAP web site, but I'd probably choose .NET over ABAP, just because the applications for .NET are more universal and web-based, whereas ABAP is more proprietary and would limit your daughter to SAP environments only. In addition, it seems your daughter's previous web-related experience might serve her better in a .NET setting.

Having said that, I'm not sure that the question is so simple. As a young developer, her best bet is to work on cutting edge projects with lots of opportunity for advancement. That's why you have to research all the pros and cons of each opportunity -- it's not just about ABAP versus .NET. The opportunities for advancement, travel, bonuses and stock options -- all of these are factors in such a decision.

This was first published in March 2005