151–160 of 497 posts
Use a text editor such as Emacs or Vim. Migrate from front end development to backend... Learn to live in the command line. Take car of your soul
It's a circular but effective way to coupe
I started my career at Bell Labs in the 80's and one engineer there made a huge impact on me. I learned more from him that any other single person I have worked with since. He suffered from progressive myopia so he had a rig with a camera and a big screen and a huge monitor. He coded slower than everyone else, but in a way, that was his secret power because his code almost never failed in testing. Also, he was brilli…
Meat of your comment to me is this phrase, “he had this insight about the balance between when to use hardware and when to use software that I think is somewhat lacking today” - would you attempt to clarify what you’re expressing he would have said about balancing the design of how software & hardware work together? Thanks.
I have just the visual component of Ushers, I’ve got about 5 degrees left of my visual field. I never really did front end work, but I still regularly do back end, and project management. I haven’t moved to non visual coding yet. Instead I have optimized for the vision I have left. I have a very bright monitor, very bright lights in my office (overhead) and have learned to make a place for everything, and always put…
If it’s not clear, there are ways to detect this, it’s legal, and if I thought there was any opportunity to easily detect biases that might impact me, I would do so.
You can definitely continue as a software engineer. I'm living proof. It won't be easy, especially at first. For a while it will feel like you're working twice as hard just to keep up with your sighted peers. But eventually, the better you get with your tools, you'll find you have some superpowers over your sighted peers. For example, as you get better with a screen reader, you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.7…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment about proof reading and errors not sounding right reminds me of the "proper/best" way to learn Morse code for ham radio. Most everyone is familiar with the charts that show A=.- B=-... etc. Lots of beginners try to actually interpret the sounds in their ears and convert that to a letter and then convert a bunch of those to a word. Obviously, that is very processor intensive and has a high failure rate. T…
Any tips on how to start then? I used to know all the letters in Morse code but it was basically just learning the chart as you mentioned. I've since forgotten most of the alphabet.
I'm sure this has been mentioned, but front ends need to be usable by blind users so I would imagine a blind front end developer would be extremely useful in that case, at a minimum.
It can be tough some times being a younger person in the industry, but know that there is no reason anyone here should be rolling their eyes at this. I was working full time in software development at 17 myself.
> What kinds of software engineering lend themselves to someone with limited vision? Backend only?
There is a growing market for front end web accessibility. Especially for software that meets the needs of both sighted and non-sighted individuals. Not only do I think there is a place for non-sighted individuals in front end software development if that's something you are interested in, but I think it's vital to have these individuals having a role in developing front end software.
> Does your company employ blind engineers? How well does it work? What kind of engineer are they?
We do not currently employ any blind engineers, though we would be very happy to hire one. We have customers that require visual accessibility compliance and right now this compliance is largely being implemented by sighted people. I would consider this a non ideal situation.
With this said, I also don't want it to be felt like you have to specialize in your own disability either. I have known some really badass back end engineers that are entirely blind. With the right tools and some experience, they are able to consume content at the same speed as any sighted person. Hell, in some cases... significantly faster.
> I'm really trying to get ahead of this thing
I think this speaks for your character. It's easy to get caught up in denial and to hold out until the very last moment.
I can't personally speak to how it feels to deal with going blind, so I'll let those with much more experience in this area speak to that. One thing I can say though, is to start using the available tools now and full time, even if you don't require them yet. By the time you find yourself depending on them, you will already be accustomed to using them.
I'd be happy to speak about my own personal struggles with disability (I am rapidly becoming deaf), but honestly... I'll spare you that unless you actually want me to. It's obviously a very different experience and I don't want it to feel like I am diminishing the significance of what you are going through. :)
> Since my diagnosis I've slowly developed a crippling anxiety centered around a feeling that I need to figure out the rest of my life before it's too late.
This is a very reasonable and understandable reaction to what you are dealing with.
You can definitely continue as a software engineer. I'm living proof. It won't be easy, especially at first. For a while it will feel like you're working twice as hard just to keep up with your sighted peers. But eventually, the better you get with your tools, you'll find you have some superpowers over your sighted peers. For example, as you get better with a screen reader, you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.7…
> you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.75-2X normal speech. You'll be the only one who can understand your screen reader Huh. I already listen to most podcasts and recorded presentations at 2x. Now you make me wonder if I could process information faster with a screen reader even though my sight works just fine...
I also think it's important that the screen readers use a "old school" synthesized voice, instead of a voice that sound natural, because each of the phonemes is articulated distinctly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.75-2X normal speech. You'll be the only one who can understand your screen reader Huh. I already listen to most podcasts and recorded presentations at 2x. Now you make me wonder if I could process information faster with a screen reader even though my sight works just fine...
This person is sharing personal information about a serious disease and disability in their life and asking for help. But thanks for taking the time to share how superhuman you are.