I can't do the nuances justice here for sure. But to make a long story short: PLCs replace relay circuits for Industrial Electrical technicians (hence: Ladder)

I can't do the nuances justice here for sure. But to make a long story short: PLCs replace relay circuits for Industrial Electrical technicians (hence: Ladder). And make no mistake: relay circuits are important, and is something they are very adept at! However, this doesn't imply that they are automatically able to write or debug regular Python or C code or what have you. ----- PS. If you let a PLC programmer at any language, they'll find a way to do ladder logic. Illustrative example (combining some features I've seen in textbooks and IRL, formatting included): if Tank_Level_Reached == True and EF132121 == False and Ready_To_Start == True and Finished == False and Belt == Not_Ready and Stage == 5 and Position_Left_Arm == Up : move_left = True move_right = False if Tank_Level_Reached == True and EF132121 == False and Ready_To_Start == True and Finished == False and Belt == Not_Ready and Stage == 5 and Position_Left_Arm == Down: move_left = False move_right = True if Tank_Level_Reached == True and EF132121 == False and Ready_To_Start == False and Finished == False and Belt == Not_Ready and Stage == 5 and (Position_Left_Arm == Down or Position_Left_Arm == Up): move_left = False move_right = False etc ...