How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#1

Post by raoulj » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
stackoverflow.com

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#2

Post by gtani » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

I used to work in adaptive skiing, mostly with visually impaired kids and adults, and met a couple of blind develoeprs and people working on screen readers and other equipment.

They lived in California which helped with a lot of expensive Braille and other equipment, but mostly they achieved at a high academic and industry level thru sheer determination. Academics: degrees from MIT, Berkeley, other top programs. One critical skill was to crank up their browser readers to unbelievable speeds, I couldnt understand anything at that speed. I think most of them used the emacs-speak interface from Cornell. There weren't any tools to make schematics and similar dense graphic representations approachable, tho.

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#3

Post by js2 » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

There was a pretty good discussion here two years ago which included a screen reader example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8965048

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#4

Post by 2-4-Flinching » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

" I use windows xp as my operating system"... WTH!!

"Sep 29 '08" ohhh LOL

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#5

Post by SunShiranui » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

I've seen blind CS students use a combination of braille displays and screen readers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#6

Post by zabi_rauf » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

Saqib from Microsoft is blind and demoed using Visual Studio at Build this year

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#7

Post by melling » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

zabi_rauf wrote: post #6

Saqib from Microsoft is blind and demoed using Visual Studio at Build this year https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0

At 2:22 he has to press F5 to build.

Personally, I would like to say "Build", "Run", "Next Error", "insert line below", "rename function foo to bar", "Reformat file", "Reformat method", etc in my editor. Wouldn't we all benefit by having an editor that had some voice commands?

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#8

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

zabi_rauf wrote: post #6

Saqib from Microsoft is blind and demoed using Visual Studio at Build this year https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0

[deleted]

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#9

Post by mtve » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:11 PM UTC

2-4-Flinching wrote: post #4

" I use windows xp as my operating system"... WTH!! "Sep 29 '08" ohhh LOL

I use winxp too, today.

Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)

#10

Post by simias » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #7

zabi_rauf wrote: post #6

Saqib from Microsoft is blind and demoed using Visual Studio at Build this year https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0

At 2:22 he has to press F5 to build. Personally, I would like to say "Build", "Run", "Next Error", "insert line below", "rename function foo to bar", "Reformat file", "Reformat method", etc in my editor. Wouldn't we all benefit by having an editor that had some voice commands?

I hope a blind person will be able to answer you but I can't really imagine how voice command would be more efficient than a simple keyboard shortcut. Admittedly the F keys are not the easiest to access though, I prefer emacs-style chording.