Book Image

Mastering PLC Programming

By : Mason White
Book Image

Mastering PLC Programming

By: Mason White

Overview of this book

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a new feature of PLC programming that has taken the automation world by storm. This book provides you with the necessary skills to succeed in the modern automation programming environment. The book is designed in a way to take you through advanced topics such as OOP design, SOLID programming, the software development lifecycle (SDLC), library design, HMI development, general software engineering practices, and more. To hone your programming skills, each chapter has a simulated real-world project that’ll enable you to apply the skills you’ve learned. In all, this book not only covers complex PLC programming topics, but it also removes the financial barrier that comes with most books as all examples utilize free software. This means that to follow along, you DO NOT need to purchase any PLC hardware or software. By the end of this PLC book, you will have what it takes to create long-lasting codebases for any modern automation project.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
1
Part 1 – An Introduction to Advanced PLC Programming
6
Part 2 – Modularity and Objects
10
Part 3 – Software Engineering for PLCs
14
Part 4 – HMIs and Alarms
19
Part 5 – Final Project and Thoughts

Getting to know design patterns

Design patterns are solutions to common problems. You will mostly see design patterns in OOP to solve a wide variety of problems such as adding abstraction to method calls, creating single object references, and others. If you have a web development background, you may be familiar with the MVC design pattern, or the MVVM pattern if you’ve developed WPF applications in the past; however, there are many other patterns. Outside of the MVC and MVVM patterns, common patterns are as follows:

  • Singleton
  • Factory
  • Builder
  • Facade

Each one of these patterns has a different purpose and solves different problems. Whole books are dedicated to patterns; however, as an automation programmer, the one pattern that I used to gravitate to the most was the facade pattern.

The facade pattern is one of the most powerful patterns an automation programmer can use. In automation programming, doing things as simple as turning a machine on or...