ABAP originated from an assembler macro language for reporting purposes in the seventies.
ABAP evolved to an interpreted language for reporting and dialog programming in the mid-eighties, with compiler and VM implemented in mainframe assembler as part of the SAP R/2 system.
In the early and mid-nineties it was known as ABAP/4 and it became the programming language for all SAP R/3 applications with the compiler and VM implemented in C as part of the SAP R/3 kernel.
ABAP = Advanced Business Application Programming
In the late nineties it extended to a fully featured OO language and is now called ABAP Objects.
Over the past few decades, ABAP has proven itself as a programming language, with a powerful set of development tools and a high level of maturity when it comes to enterprise-level applications.
