Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#201

Post by unfocused » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

I deal with duty to accommodate and I can tell from experience some of the tools that our employees that are blind currently use. They are:

1. JAWS screen reader. They all say this is the best 2. Programmable keys, such as https://xkeys.com/xk16.html 3. ABBY Finereader - to digitize images so they can be read by JAWS. 4. Large specialized monitors (I forget which model) that could help.

And yes, like someone already mentioned, you will be listening to your screen reader at lightning speed.

All the best!

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#202

Post by sky_rw » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

Unrelated to the question:

> "I'm a 24 y/o full stack engineer (I know some of you are rolling your eyes right now..."

As a 35 year old full stack engineering manager I can say that anybody rolling their eyes at that statement needs to check themselves. Lately I've been getting smoked by a 21 year old software dev. She's constantly teaching me things and improving my code. Frameworks and technologies evolve so fast that age is a very poor metric of practical knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#203

Post by cookiengineer » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #82

hatsunearu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sighted?

Not perfectly, and not for long. I wear glasses, but they only do so much, and my vision worsens every year. I use some light assistive technologies on the daily - higher contrast, large fonts, zooming in on things. To test the tools I linked to, I spend the occasional workday with all of my monitors turned off, relying on these tools to get work done. I also have a braille reader that I occasionally pull out. I have…

As someone preparing for this, too, I still have no clue on how to rasterize the code quickly. Voice always feels inefficient and braille feels like a joke when it comes to the amount of information being displayed. Do you have suggestions? Do you transpile code?

I also use VIM because it feels like the best case of voice integration or braille integration...but I have no source for how to actually do this properly. Are there good reading materials on this?

Currently I am trying to build a semantic web browser, also with the intention to filter out all legacy crap CSS that prevents interaction with the content [1] and the idea of being able to train CNNs with the content... but when it comes to code, my memory of it seems to suck so hard that I always have no clue of what I wrote the day before.

[1] still alpha as hell: https://github.com/cookiengineer/stealth

(Also a long time observer of your work here. You are one of the good guys. Stay awesome!)

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#204

Post by mattkrisiloff » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

Doubt my comment will get to you with so many commenters and it's a bit off topic, but are you familiar with savesightnow.org? They are a patient advocacy group specifically for Usher's Syndrome working on finding a cure...good people involved in it.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#205

Post by sky_rw » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

solarengineer wrote: post #65

Unorthodox suggestion: build up lots of capital ASAP, so that you don’t struggle later commuting to terms with loss of vision as well as potential loss of revenue. Some approaches to consider: Algo trading , creating and selling off products, creating stuff for startups for a stake in the profits. Right now, you may want to consider all options rather than regretting not doing so later. I have seen two blind persons…

It's silly that this comment is being downvoted. Building up capital is good advice for anybody, if only because you may have a surprise medical condition (or, you know, global pandemic) impact your career and cashflow. In this case OP is 'fortunate' enough to have early warning. IDK if algo trading etc is the right path, but a solid savings account and investment portfolio never hurt anybody.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#206

Post by slow_donkey » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

sky_rw wrote: post #202

Unrelated to the question: > "I'm a 24 y/o full stack engineer (I know some of you are rolling your eyes right now..." As a 35 year old full stack engineering manager I can say that anybody rolling their eyes at that statement needs to check themselves. Lately I've been getting smoked by a 21 year old software dev. She's constantly teaching me things and improving my code. Frameworks and technologies evolve so fast t…

I believe the emphasis was on "full stack engineer" which is why the justification was experience with both frontend and backend engineering.

Depending on which circles you run with, full stack is usually seen as misnomer because it colloquially refers to frontend engineers with the bare knowledge of backend in Node.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#207

Post by Paladiamors » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

I have a friend that went through this exact thing. He's helped with Facebook to design better accessibility features at one point. He used to be a developer and did photography and most inspiringly he still does photography even while blind which I think is an inspiration.

Spend time now to learn about accessibility features on different systems, iPhone, android, your PC. Look into how to navigate into them. Look up screen readers as you may use them to have them read content from the web for you. Be an advocate for accessibility features and their standardization as this is often forgotten with developers.

I've posted a link below to a video of my friend, if you'd like to reach out to him, PM me. It's a definitely challenging time. I've known him since before and after going blind so he may give some advice from his experience.

Also reach out to other blind communities now to hear perspectives from many other people if you can. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2108067789479904

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#208

Post by dundercoder » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

Endlessly wrote: post #153

dundercoder wrote: post #62

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…

Curious, while I agree discrimination is wrong, deeply impacts everyone in a number of ways, why at the very least would you not want to know prior to interviewing, being hired, etc - if a company was biased? 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.

Because I honestly think that most discrimination is unconscious. Many people conducting interviews have never met a legally blind person and it can make them uncomfortable. Generally, I have found people don’t hire others who make them uncomfortable, or at the least, would put other candidates ahead of them.

Once hired and able to demonstrate ability, people are less likely to let that initial uncomfortableness get the better of them.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#209

Post by AlexCoventry » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

Galaxity wrote: post #185

dang wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thanks for taking the time to share how superhuman you are" is not "asking for personal decency". Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. We're here for curious conversation, which doesn't go along with the style of argument in which people cast each other's comments in the worst possible light. If you review the site guidelines you'll see that many of them guard against that argument style. That's no acciden…

The person took the time to mention their ability to listen and comprehend two times faster than presumably the average. They didn't not mention the original poster in any sense of compassion, ignoring them. What is the strongest possible interpretation of what this person said? That which is not a fair understanding of the criticism of my post?

Listening to speech at double speed is really not that noteworthy, as anyone can do it with a bit of practice. I didn't construe it as bragging, just as outlining the thought process which led them to think that it might be worth them trying a screen reader themselves.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#210

Post by egd » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

kendallpark wrote: post #190

vidanay wrote: post #68

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…

A while back I worked for a team that had wired up Jenkins to a speaker in the office. Each type of event would trigger a different Zelda sound effect. Victory music for successful deployments, game over music for breaking the build, etc. Notably, dev server exceptions were connected to sword clashing sounds. It led to debugging situations like this: "Okay, so that's two clanks when we click on this button, but if we…

At a previous gig, we had a lot of systems named after animals, and I'd joked about wiring our alerting system up to emit the animal sound for the system that was paging, but I think I'm actually going to do that at my next gig. Outside the land of software, engineers debug systems using sound all the time - I think we're underutilizing our senses and our pattern recognition.