Hi Tobias, and please let me send out a very warm welcome to you from the Apache PLC4X project.
I really like that you want to start contributing to this really cool project. I think it’s really the missing link between IT and OT and we can use any help we can get. Well, the person on this list, that probably did the most work on PLC4Rs, is Julian. However, I do think he’ll be totally open and happy about feedback, Pull requests and help on this. I do recall him learning Rust while working on PLC4Rs and same as I started with PLC4Go as my way to learn go, I doubt you instantly get everything right the first time. I would strongly recommend to continue working on the existing PLC4Rs as I think there’s already a lot of moving parts in place there. Because one thing, that’s super special about PLC4X, is that we generate a lot of code. So, we define the messages and the parsing and serializing in so-called MSPEC files and then have language specific code generated automatically. This was usually the most boring and error prone part of writing drivers, so we automated it. There’s also universal test-cases available to test this generated code without having to implement the same tests over and over again for every language. This makes the initial start for a language a bit more work, but it totally pays out in the long run. We’re also planning on adding more parts of the drivers to be generated in all languages, but I guess that will be a topic for 2023, as I’m currently consumed with bringing the ADS driver to go and then greatly improving the EIP driver in all languages. I do hope that Julian will we willing to show up again and work on this with you … I’ll definitely put in some friendship-pressure to ensure this ;-) And I’ll send you an ivite to Slack right away. Chris From: Tobias Tschinkowitz <[email protected]> Date: Monday, 21. November 2022 at 10:18 To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Rust Contributor - introducing myself Dear dev-team, I just wanted to introduce myself to the team, as I want to contribute to the plc4x project in near future. Previously I was in contact with Chris which told me that I should share my plans with you all here in the mailing-list. At first, a short resume: - Apprenticeship as mechatronic in the machine-manufacturing industry - 7 Years of working as a service engineer world-wide - mostly working on Siemens S5, S7, TIA and Beckhoff TwinCAT 2 and 3 - beside of the work I graduated as B.Eng. - Computer Engineering (Embedded Systems) - 3 Years of working as C# Developer - bringing together automation systems and reporting-systems (e.g. Wonderware Historian, Siemens S7) - 2 Years of working as Software Developer - mostly Siemens S7, Beckhoff TwinCAT 3, Wonderware/Aveva software, Rust and Golang. - Since 2020 I am working as a freelancer with my own company SCITE (software service provider) - mostly using Rust, Golang and various automation systems. TLDR: - Experienced Software-Developer (Rust/Golang) with a strong foundation in the automation industry. About my plans: In the first half of 2023 i mainly want to contribute to OSS Projects. As I see the high potential in PLC4X, i would really love to support you guys. I would focus on the implementation of the plc4rust part where some work was already done in the plc4rs branch. As I don’t know if the code is obsolete I wanted to ask you where I should start from. So my questions: 1. Should I use the code that is already present, or just use parts of it and start „fresh“? 2. Who would be my main contact for the rust part? 3. Chris told me about the Apache Slack chan. Maybe I can get an invitation for that? Thanks and best regards, Tobias
