Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

vincit.fi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 109 posts

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#11

Post by yorwba »

nerdponx wrote: post #3

What about Notepad++ makes it work with screen readers while Sublime and Atom don't?

From https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

..., Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size.

And which lets it piggy-back on Windows' accessibility features, which seem to be quite good.

I guess Sublime Text and Atom draw their own GUIs to get more control over the look-and-feel, but don't add the necessary hints to make screen readers work.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#13

Post by yorwba »

dreta wrote: post #10

I'd be interested in learning more about how a blind person does software development. I already do most of my coding work in the terminal with keyboard only where possible, and it'd be an interesting exercise to try and get rid of the monitor altogether.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-progr...

Most recent discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14702287

This video from the comments is worth a watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#14

Post by Kiro »

dreta wrote: post #6
seanwilson wrote: post #5

> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute. After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understan…

The speech becomes surprisingly clear if you listen to it and read the paragraph at the same time.

Sure but that's obviously not how it's used. Also, for the first one which is the one he's actually using I couldn't make out a single word even when reading at the same time.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#15

Post by Kiro »

seanwilson wrote: post #5

> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute. After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understan…

Aren't both English but with different accents?

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#17

Post by pier25 »

seanwilson wrote: post #5

> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute. After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understan…

It's gibberish to me too, but surely it's something that can be learned.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#18

Post by mgr86 »

seanwilson wrote: post #5

> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute. After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understan…

I wonder the same. I often listen to videos at 1.5-1.8x. I can listen to faster, but after about 2-2.5x it becomes enjoyable. As I need full concentration to parse the speech and miss out on the visual experience. Perhaps being blind the audio processing is heightened or just the visual distraction is absent allowing full concentration on the audio?

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#19

Post by altotrees »

This is amazing and a scenario I had never really considered before. I know it has been said that the best programmers carry around small programs in their heads and map things out mentally — this is kind of the same idea taken to the extreme.

I thought the portion on frontend development was really interesting. Something I had never considered, but to think of it from the angle in which it is presented just kind of blew my mind. This piece made my morning.

edit: I guess this post also just shows that if you want to learn to program and be an engineer, there are certainly ways to make that happen, regardless of specific elements of your situation (to a point, obviously). Really, really neat.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#20

Post by jhgb »

yorwba wrote: post #11
nerdponx wrote: post #3

What about Notepad++ makes it work with screen readers while Sublime and Atom don't?

From https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ ..., Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size. And which lets it piggy-back on Windows' accessibility features, which seem to be quite good. I guess Sublime Text and Atom draw their own GUIs to get more control over the look-and-feel, but don't add the necessary hints to make screen readers work.

Wouldn't a proper structured editor be more suitable for blind coding? The market isn't large but I can't imagine blindly navigating through a sea of characters. Sounds terrifying.
Post reply on HN