PhilipW
Member
How many of you are looking to the future and seeing the trend towards SFC's and Structured Text (ST) becoming the way of the future?
For example Schneider's new Unity Pro package is 100% optimised to run ST, but by contrast the Ladder (LD) editor is a clumsy afterthought. Even when using the LD it encourages you to write all you Operations and Compares in little ST fragments.
Right now Ladder accounts for 80-90% of the automation code installed base, but do you see this percentage staying the same or declining? And if so, will it be a gradual change or possibly a rapid one?
I'm quite happy using SFC's, FBD and ST. But in my heart of little PLC hearts, I prefer Ladder. I can do everything in it that I have ever needed to do. It is one universal tongue we all understand. Is there actually any real benefit in the proliferation of languages that IEC1131 mandates?
Are we going to see text based code churned out by IT graduates flicked over from web-design, grinding out the big projects? These kind of people have no trouble modelling process in text-based languages. OK so I'm being a little provocative, but I guess I am asking a serious question about whether or not us hands on people will have a place in larger automation projects, other than yanking cables and belling out IO.
For example Schneider's new Unity Pro package is 100% optimised to run ST, but by contrast the Ladder (LD) editor is a clumsy afterthought. Even when using the LD it encourages you to write all you Operations and Compares in little ST fragments.
Right now Ladder accounts for 80-90% of the automation code installed base, but do you see this percentage staying the same or declining? And if so, will it be a gradual change or possibly a rapid one?
I'm quite happy using SFC's, FBD and ST. But in my heart of little PLC hearts, I prefer Ladder. I can do everything in it that I have ever needed to do. It is one universal tongue we all understand. Is there actually any real benefit in the proliferation of languages that IEC1131 mandates?
Are we going to see text based code churned out by IT graduates flicked over from web-design, grinding out the big projects? These kind of people have no trouble modelling process in text-based languages. OK so I'm being a little provocative, but I guess I am asking a serious question about whether or not us hands on people will have a place in larger automation projects, other than yanking cables and belling out IO.