If you’re new to ASUG or less famil­iar with the wider SAP com­mu­ni­ty, I know what you might be ask­ing: ​“What’s a CodeJam?” 

Nev­er fear: I can explain. Among the most wide­ly cel­e­brat­ed learn­ing events avail­able to the SAP devel­op­er com­mu­ni­ty, SAP Code­Jams give devel­op­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try out SAP tech­nolo­gies, plat­forms, and tools in hands-on set­tings through sim­ple, end-to-end scenarios. 

At the recent ASUG Pitts­burgh Chap­ter meet­ing on Tues­day, Sept. 19, I had the plea­sure of par­tic­i­pat­ing in my first hands-on Code­Jam ses­sion: the SAP Intro­duc­tion to the Core Prin­ci­ples of UI5 Code­Jam, aimed at devel­op­ers at all stages of their careers and led by Michelle Moudy, Devel­op­er Advo­cate, SAP Devel­op­er and Com­mu­ni­ty Rela­tions at SAP.

Pri­or to the meet­ing, atten­dees were pro­vid­ed with a list of pre-req­ui­sites, the com­ple­tion of which was intend­ed to set them up for suc­cess dur­ing the Code­Jam. Still, despite going through these pre-req­ui­sites. I arrived in Pitts­burgh uncer­tain what to expect. Luck­i­ly, Michelle was more than hap­py to pro­vide us with a brief overview. 

Through­out the learn­ing and net­work­ing ses­sion, I joined Chap­ter meet­ing atten­dees in learn­ing the core prin­ci­ples of UI5, an enter­prise-ready web devel­op­ment frame­work used to build apps that fol­low the Fiori design guide­lines. Step by step, I learned how to build a front-end web appli­ca­tion using UI5: specif­i­cal­ly, a book­shop app where users can browse and order books, with­in the book­shop back­end appli­ca­tion built with the Node.js fla­vor of the SAP Cloud Appli­ca­tion Pro­gram­ming Mod­el (CAP).

As a hands-on learn­er myself, I was thrilled to have instruc­tion from Michelle but also excit­ed to explore all this new cod­ing world had to offer. Full dis­clo­sure: I had no pri­or expe­ri­ence with this type of cod­ing. But, let me tell you, I was blown away by what I learned.

We start­ed off with Chap­ter 1.01, ​“Scaf­fold­ing the App.” To be hon­est, look­ing at the code for the first time was a bit over­whelm­ing to this novice devel­op­er. But once we all got start­ed, Michelle went around to each par­tic­i­pant to make sure all of us were on the right track. She helped me nav­i­gate through the exer­cis­es and deter­mine how to use each tool with­in the plat­form prop­er­ly. After get­ting through the first cou­ple steps, my pri­ma­ry site was created. 

In step two, we cre­at­ed a file and added code to it, which allowed us to see our first mes­sage on our web-app book­store. Step three was where things start­ed pick­ing up in com­plex­i­ty, and where we start­ed to see the first mod­el of our book­shop app. Once I reached the end of all these steps, my code failed to func­tion as intend­ed, but Michelle quick­ly helped me trou­bleshoot where I went wrong. 

I was able to set up my web­site, but no books were appear­ing in the book­shop, and it felt emp­ty. As Mar­cus Cicero was once cred­it­ed with declar­ing, ​“A room with­out books is like a body with­out a soul,” so Michelle coached me through this road­block as well and point­ed out the prob­lem: I seemed to enjoy cre­at­ing mul­ti­ple addi­tion­al web-app fold­ers that were not necessary. 

I think one of the best things about going through the Code­Jam process was being able to test and view the book­shop app as I went along. After resolv­ing my cod­ing issues, I could final­ly see the books in the shop. Emi­ly Bron­të, here I come! 

The next step: adding book descrip­tions to the site, also known as ​“Cre­at­ing and Extend­ing the First Con­troller.” Con­fig­ur­ing the FlexBox, which aligns the con­tent in the store, and deter­min­ing where the prop­er code was sup­posed to be entered was a chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence. Ulti­mate­ly, it was worth the reward of see­ing the book descrip­tions pop up on my app! 

But what’s a store with­out an option to order? That was our next step, and this one I found to be slight­ly eas­i­er than the rest. After ensur­ing my future cus­tomers would be able to buy all the lat­est New York Times best­sellers from my one-stop shop, one of the last steps I took was cre­at­ing a search box. 

Even though the Code­Jam was a chal­lenge for me as a first-time devel­op­er, I would do it all over again in a heart­beat. Over­all, the expe­ri­ence was invalu­able, and it was par­tic­u­lar­ly eye-open­ing to see things from a developer’s point of view. I had no pre­vi­ous cod­ing expe­ri­ence, but I had a lot of fun learn­ing how to build my own app. 

If you are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in one of these oppor­tu­ni­ties, I have good news. Code­Jam ses­sions are planned for the ASUG Col­orado Chap­ter meet­ing, ASUG Ten­nessee Chap­ter meet­ing, or ASUG Devel­op­er Tools Day, and ASUG will con­tin­ue to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to bring sim­i­lar Code­Jam ses­sions to a Chap­ter meet­ing or con­fer­ence near you.

Gwen­dolyn Glas­ner is Man­ag­er of Chap­ter Ser­vices at ASUG.