J
JC
I take issue with this assessment.
Take your example of C vs Visual Basic. There's a dramatic difference between the two, and quite often the requirements of a project will determine which language to use... things like development time, low-level hardware access, GUI requirements, target system, execution time, etc. In some cases, C is advantageous. In others, you'd be fool to use C.
The difficulty and complexity in Siemens grants the programmer ZERO advantages over, say, an Allen Bradley Controllogix. Zero advantages. No matter the requirements of the system, it will almost always be much easier and more straightforward with Allen Bradley, especially for a beginner. (Barring any oddities like being locked into an incompatible network protocol... AB is only slightly better at Profinet than Siemens is with Ethernet/IP.)
Having worked extensively with both, I just can't take seriously anyone who disagrees with this.
Anytime I come across a Siemens programmer who raves about how great TIA Portal is, I know right away I've come across a guy who lives and breathes Siemens and has never worked with other high-end controllers. Sure, coming from Step7 5.5 (or, God forbid, Step 5), it's a HUGE leap forward... but it's practically unusable for large projects.
Siemens is today where Allen Bradley was 15 years ago, when AB was shedding off the shackles of RSLogix500. At the time when RSLogix5000 was in its infancy (which lasted until version 12 or so), it was releasing very buggy development software and buggy hardware. The new crop from Siemens is no different... and it'll be a few years before it's stable enough to use in industry. I say that after some hard lessons learned in the field, so consider it a warning.
Take your example of C vs Visual Basic. There's a dramatic difference between the two, and quite often the requirements of a project will determine which language to use... things like development time, low-level hardware access, GUI requirements, target system, execution time, etc. In some cases, C is advantageous. In others, you'd be fool to use C.
The difficulty and complexity in Siemens grants the programmer ZERO advantages over, say, an Allen Bradley Controllogix. Zero advantages. No matter the requirements of the system, it will almost always be much easier and more straightforward with Allen Bradley, especially for a beginner. (Barring any oddities like being locked into an incompatible network protocol... AB is only slightly better at Profinet than Siemens is with Ethernet/IP.)
Having worked extensively with both, I just can't take seriously anyone who disagrees with this.
Anytime I come across a Siemens programmer who raves about how great TIA Portal is, I know right away I've come across a guy who lives and breathes Siemens and has never worked with other high-end controllers. Sure, coming from Step7 5.5 (or, God forbid, Step 5), it's a HUGE leap forward... but it's practically unusable for large projects.
Siemens is today where Allen Bradley was 15 years ago, when AB was shedding off the shackles of RSLogix500. At the time when RSLogix5000 was in its infancy (which lasted until version 12 or so), it was releasing very buggy development software and buggy hardware. The new crop from Siemens is no different... and it'll be a few years before it's stable enough to use in industry. I say that after some hard lessons learned in the field, so consider it a warning.