I'm a programmer with 3 years of .NET experience under my belt, and am currently looking for a new job.
One of the options I'm considering is as an OO ABAP developer position with SAP.
However, I have several concerns about taking an ABAP job:
as ABAP is used exclusively by SAP, any experience in ABAP that I have would be irrelevant in the outside world.
I'm also worried that I wouldn't be exposed to new technologies while working in ABAP, and ultimately I would lose touch with what's going on in the world.
This is a real sore point, since I really enjoy exploring and learning new & cool stuff.
(*note: Yes, I could experiment with other technologies & trends on my own time, but this is much harder to do, and isn't really the same as working full-time with them)
One of the nicest things about programming, for me, is finding a great OO architecture / design (I'm really into object-oriented :)). I know that ABAP is a procedural language, and I'm not certain how 'OO' it's OO version is.
This leads me to the conclusion that, unless I stay with SAP to the end of my career, any time spent there would be professionaly unbenificial.
Is there anyone who can shed some light on these opinions? are my concerns founded? Are there any advantages (career and technology-wise) to ABAP that I'm missing?