I was damn good a VAX assembler (15 years ago).. since that time I have not looked at a single register shift or bitwise op and have no desire to.
I learned inline code and OOP, ladder logic drives me insane and I have nowhere to learn the time tested way of doig things.
Every time I price a PLC, I end up with thousands of dollars worth of add ons. Every try to pin down an ATMEGA128 plan, the pain of learnign yet another language hurts my brain (either assembler, C, or some new goofy basic port).
I have ended up with a PC, 96 bit PCI I/O card, USB I/O cards and a dallas 1 wire adaptor. The program is in visual basic, it runs on windows XP, talks to me, dials my cell phone, serves a web page for data logging and remote admin, sends emails, does light and moon cycles based on the nasa/usno models, and a few other things. It DOES NOT control my top/off, heaters, or other critical life support systems, it only monitors them.
I follow these PLC threads, as I am always looking to see how they turn out. Stable is one nice thing about them. Until I can program one with easy to use language, write a web interface and PC interface, And spend less than $3,000 I just can't see taking the plunge.
Bean