As an SAP (ABAP and web) developer: I stumbled upon an internship 10 years ago which provided me with some formal training and a company to work for. It's not an easy specialty to get into. Most developers I know are either converted key users or the old school mainframe type guys since ABAP resembles COBOL in it's syntax. The younger ones generally come in through the large consulting companies who move massive amounts of juniors around to see who fits where. Think IBM, wipro, TCS.
These days it's a little bit easier because you can get developer editions of HANA for free, and their front end framework is open source (UI5).
You'd be surprised. UI5 is made by SAP as their go-to UI technology. SAP's profit last year was over 6B euro and it's used in almost every large enterprise out there. It's just hard to see as a tech company because it's not consumer facing.
My thoughts exactly. My next laptop will be a Surface Book as well.
Limited RAM, no Fn keys, no ports used in enterprises all over the world... I'm not carrying the lightest laptop money can buy if it has to be accompanied by the largest bag of adaptors.
I'm surprised I hear so little complaints from enterprise users. As a contractor for large companies - some of which are still on Windows 7 - the lack of standardised ports is an absolute deal breaker. USB drives, VGA / HDMI capable video conferencing etcetera means I have to buy and lug around countless accessories and adapters just so I can use my "thinner and lighter than ever" MacBook which completely defeats the purpose.
The other deal breaker is the 8G ram in the 13" model. Running various VM's just requires more - which I do to accomodate client environments that use Windows 7, for instance.
Besides that I also use the F keys extensively in my work, so the touch bar doesn't mean much for me. I don't want to keep looking down to see what's where.
My next laptop will probably be a Windows one, which actually breaks my heart. I've used Apple since the G5 iMac. I might get a base model for personal use but I'm not sure I see the point.