Question: Did you always want to be a software deveoper?

Caroline Roche answered on 1 Jul 2021:

No, if you had said to me when I was at school that I would be a software developer, I would have said that sounds really boring! At school, software development meant text based programming which ended up being a lot of IF..OR statements and declaring variables in the wrong place.

It was only in my second year of university that I had the opportunity to start programming control systems. I realised, I quite liked it and I found it alot more interesting to do. Programming the industrial computers (PLCs – programmable logic controllers) is more graphical and you can see how the hardware and software interconnect.

The software that I use comes with 4 language types built in, and you can use which ever one suits the piece of code you are doing. The entire program can be made of a mix of different sections, coded in a different way.
For example, if I was creating a large IF..OR statement I would use Structured Text because it’s text based (it’s easier to type, usually it’s used for help files and version control). While if I was translating some electrical drawings of switches and lamps into code I would use Ladder Logic because it’s built to mimic the electrical rungs.
Then Sequential Functional Chart would be used for recipes and processes.
While Function Block Diagrams would be used for device control.