The people I've worked with who are operating power plants can't read code. Perhaps they can read a schematic and could understand ladder logic. They are usually quite skilled mechanically though.

Even the automation professionals I work with whose jobs are to write and maintain PLC programs look at the 'structured text' PLC logic I've written (a constraint solving algorithm) and can't be bothered trying to understand it.

Controlling a physical system is different from programming computers. The simpler the logic is to read and understand the better. Direct and verbose is better than layers of indirection and abstractions.