[Answer] I’m doing PLC programming now and want to teach myself microcontroller programming in C. Is that feasible?

[Answer] I’m doing PLC programming now and want to teach myself microcontroller programming in C. Is that feasible?

C and PLC programming can be considered fundamentally different. If you’ve looked into PLCs in some depth, you’ll know that PLC programming is not limited to a single language. Besides the graphical LAD language—that is, ladder diagrams—there are also several other languages such as STL that are much closer to C or Pascal. Those text-based languages, represented here by STL, are more in the same family as C, while ladder diagrams are designed more for non-specialist programmers, that is, engineers.

So although C and PLC ladder logic may both appear to be programming languages on the surface, there is an essential difference between them. That’s not to say learning C is out of the question—far from it—but to learn it well, you’ll need to make up a whole range of related knowledge.

A classic textbook is Tan Haoqiang’s C programming tutorial. One book I personally recommend is Learn 8051 Microcontrollers Hands-On (C Language Edition). This latter book explains both the C language and the most basic embedded platform, the 8051 microcontroller, in a clear and accessible way, making it easy to get started. It’s worth giving it a try.