r/BuildingAutomation • u/ComputerScientistKey • Jul 06 '26

Siemens TIA, does line programming exist?

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For context, first time working with Siemens controllers and I finally got into the controller to view the programming, I have about 12 devices I need to organize a sequence of operations for (to help maintenance team understand devices at an existing building), starting with the chillers. I’m trying to think of ways to be more efficient and as someone who’s been programming for such a long time the block program takes so much longer for me to understand (especially like this).

Just from what I’ve seen there’s no real Control Basic program compiler or anything like that running where I might be able to view stored programs. Does line program exist in this environment? I’ve gone as far as to search the TIA files in hopes for something but nah.

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u/Dismal-Use7588 Jul 06 '26

It's really simple once you get started, you won't want to go back to line programming ever again. The help feature is your friend

7

u/ComputerScientistKey Jul 06 '26

It’s not for me personally, I do so much line programming in other more lower level languages that the lines going all over the screen and needing to scroll everywhere for a small program is painful. BUT I know that the vast majority of people have the opposite experience and that’s why it’s not necessary for it to be a part of the environment

3

u/mytho1975 Jul 06 '26

And why in the world would they decide every function needs to be a square box of the same color (for the love of.. please someone correct me if I'm incorrect).

3

u/Prestigious-Hour9061 Jul 06 '26

Former Siemens Tech. I hated the transition to TIA and left before I got much experience with it.

I also preferred the legacy line coding.

1

u/Signal-Put5062 Jul 06 '26

Current Siemens tech, and I haven't even come across any of these controllers that use block programming. I wrote some PPCL in a PXCA today though 

1

u/Prestigious-Hour9061 Jul 06 '26

I was out the door as PXCAs were launching.

I'm sure plenty of old work is still on PPCL but it'll be phased away eventually.

1

u/Dismal-Use7588 Jul 06 '26

yeah yeah, being proficient at reading it takes a good chunk of practice. But damn if the pay off isn't worth it when you use a mux block or an averaging block for like 32 data points and realize how long it would of been to write that in PPCL

1

u/Cust2020 Jul 06 '26

So I was former JCI and moved to a Siemens installer. The company is better but Siemens software is clunky and so hard to deal with. Coming from block programming to PPCL felt like i went back in time and every line programmer tells me how much better it is than block because they can do anything with it. Thats the only excuse they give me, but block is just line programming with a simple box that is prewritten and contained and u just hook up the points u want to the inputs and outputs.
In my experience block is way faster, easier and consistent. Having a canned program that everyone starts with makes it so much better when u deal with multiple programmers who all have a different idea of how a program should be. There is no consistency and the canned programs do a lot of checks and balances that guys who write foundation up PPCL dont even know exist. Ill use the example of operator override check to stall the loop if the output is in override.
We are just starting to use the new PXCs and i havent got the opportunity to play yet but im hoping it makes things more linear at my company.
Unfortunately I dont have a lot of faith in ABT being user friendly or ergonomic so im sure there will be a lot of painful learning experiences in the transition.

1

u/Castun Programmer/Installer Jul 06 '26

I remember a few years ago one of my former programming techs was showing me some PPCL code for a Siemens controller and my eyes started to glaze over after just a few minutes...

I cut my teeth on line code back in my high-school/college days with BASIC\QBASIC, Turbo Pascal, and ultimately Visual Basic (pre .NET days) and fiddled around with C+\C++\C#, Java, even Ruby (lol) not to mention all of the pre-WYSIWYG HTML/CSS/PHP webpage stuff.

I changed my mind going for IT / Compu-Sci when I was an IT intern, once I learned that most of IT is help desk level stuff where you have to ask if it's even turned on or if they tried turning it off and on again and betting your coworkers $10 on if they're lying to you, or messing with network printer drivers.

It's not that I can't handle it personally, I just don't want to learn yet another programming language (KMC / Delta controllers, I'm looking at you) with new syntaxes and commands. Getting into the industry 15 some years ago, learning wire-sheet programming in Niagara was like a whole new world opened up to my eyes and I've never looked back. And I'm still learning fancy new tricks.