# Learning PLC stuff from scratch

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/learning-plc-stuff-from-scratch/111995>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [November 6, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/learning-plc-stuff-from-scratch/111995 "2025-11-06T14:11:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bkarabinchak.psi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bkarabinchak.psi/32/83567_2.png) [@bkarabinchak.psi](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bkarabinchak.psi)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/learning-plc-stuff-from-scratch/111995/1 "2025-11-06T14:11:41Z")

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Want to expand my skillset so I can be more of a full end-to-end automation engineer, right now I am all SCADA and upwards (SCADA + integrating with corpo MES/IT/SAP/data pipelines etc).

I want to learn the PLC side of things with best practices. Anyone have a recommended course or book they would vouch for? FWIW we mostly use Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and Beckoff PLC’s, focus on ladder over structured text etc. I don’t learning on another brand or in some generic style as long as it’s more or less translatable.

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**Author:** ![bschroeder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bschroeder/32/13260_2.png) [@bschroeder](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bschroeder)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/learning-plc-stuff-from-scratch/111995/2 "2025-11-06T14:28:35Z")

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For AB you can talk to your distributor. They will have access to Rockwell training schedules, and might offer their own training for customers.

I'm sure that Siemens and Beckoff do similar.

For ladder, most of the major platforms are pretty similar. They each have their own way of processing the logic, different names for instructions, etc... but for the _most part_ they are readable from one to the other.

Best practices though are wildly different from PLC to PLC. Even sometimes in the same vendor, _Rockwell cough cough_. Most of the best practices you see on this forum are about data structure, and compaction. Logic flow, naming, packing code so it is reusable is part of the stuff that doesn't really get talked about on here as much. There are many ways to do all of that, and each programmer has the way they think is the best.

Once you have your feet wet, honestly the best way to learn is to do, ask questions and dig into existing _good_ code from engineers you respect.