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by lb1lf 1601 days ago
-We're at the other end of the stack, I'm afraid - Siemens S7 PLCs for the most part; whenever I code I basically write assembly code like it's 1979 - and it will never, ever be exposed to the web if I've got any say in the matter.
2 comments

Ah well, you can use (allmost) all the web technologies completely offline and even interfacing with low level hardware.

So you could have javascript and html to power your devices, but you probably do not want to.

That we can, but we do not want to. :)

We basically sold our soul to SIMATIC, Siemens' automation ecosystem long ago.

While it does have its quirks (to put it charitably), it is utterly predictable; as a first-order approximation, the ridiculously underpowered, ridiculously overpriced hardware never fails. (Unless you exert undue influence with a blunt object or high voltage)

I've (recently) patched code on Siemens PLCs being made in West Germany, that is, before October 1990. They still go about doing their thing. That kind of reliability makes me willing to suffer quite a lot of quirks.

Hence, STL, Siemens' near-assembly experience, it is. Snippet below:

A "InData".Joystick.WinchHoistCmd

  JCN   lowr
L "WinchDrumDb".SpeedExpCmd

L "WinchDrumSetupDb".Winch.MaxJoystickSpeedCmd

*R

T "WinchDrumDb".SpeedCmd

JU end2

At least it has mnemonics!

Yeah, I have heard of them(I think my dad used them back then even in east germany) and they are probably right for what you are doing and I am not suggesting, you switch to javascript.

But in other newly developed hardware, it can actually make sense nowdays, to use javascript. Mainly because you can get an abundance of developers for it, but then probably the hard part is to weed out those, who can barely script some website, to those who have indeed the right skillset.

If you are looking for STL people, you probably get STL people.

No github then?
He is talking about the running code. But since it is probably not open source, no GitHub either.