What programming language is suitable for creating control/alarm and automation systems and for process visualization (HMI)?

Question

Automation

Greetings to the creators and all participants of the resource.
At our drilling rig, we use the system of the Norwegian company HOGLUND Marine Automation for the control / emergency system and for the control of drilling equipment by a system based on SIEMENS S7 created by Maritime Hydraulics. In general, they work well. I would like to create small systems for collecting data, monitoring and visualizing / displaying the information received myself. Some advise C++ others VB third something else. Please advise.
Thanks

Answer 1

I advise you to start with the decomposition of the problem, because. data collection is one thing, visualization is another. It's not a fact that you really need programming at all, because. if you can drive data into some format (or database) without programming, then you can display them even in Excel through external data sources. I advise you not to go deep into programming yet, but to try to solve the problem with little effort. There is a lot of information
on the page https://www.siemens-pro.ru/components/s7-300.htm . I was a little amused by such info in one of the documents (it seems that these controllers have been developed for a very long time, which, in general, characterizes them very positively):
Well, if without jokes, if you have access to siemens controllers, then it seems like it’s not a problem to take readings from them and add them to the MSSQL database (maybe even free MySQL). The main thing is to get data from the controllers. Display experiments can be postponed until later.

Answer 2

Scheme: sensors->microservice->base->socket-server->rendering client(s)
Use robust libraries for time-tested languages: C++ or Object Pascal for microservices and socket server and HTML5 to access it and render it in the browser .

Answer 3

The first standard approach is SCADA. For example, Siemens has WinCC. Read which one is more convenient (PC View, Genesis64...)
The second approach is communication via OPC or another protocol (eg Modbus-TCP). Here choose the language you like.
The controllers themselves usually use 2 text (IL, ST) and 4 graphic (LD, FBD, CFC, SFC) languages. The program in the controllers must work independently, whether there is a connection with the SCADA'oy.

Answer 4

Look at Scada Trace Mode
A very large list of supported devices
Modern architecture, somewhat similar to Java and .Net
Various programming options (code, visual environment, etc.)
And most importantly cheaper than Siemens