I knew a blind software engineer that was decent, he'd use Eclipse and have his screen reader speed turned very fast.
Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
11–20 of 497 posts
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#12While I don't yet know a ton about the accessibility software development community, I've discovered Deque Labs[1] while looking into some accessibility tooling.
They have really good resources and training around accessibility for the web, and some of the software they develop[2] is incorporated into Google Lighthouse.
Their guides and videos might help you get a sense for how other people use alternative access methods to interface with the web.
With both the skills to write software and a deeper understanding of the use cases you'll be well-positioned to help improve things for a lot of people - I'm sure it could be tough at times, but stick with it, and best of luck to you.
[1] - https://www.deque.com/services/accessibility-empathy-lab/
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#13I recommend using a tiling window manager - they allow you to organize windows logically, rather than spatially.
I have also written some plugins for using Vim (text editing) and Weechat (IRC chat) with speech synthesis:
https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/dotfiles/tree/master/lib/vim/vim...
https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/dotfiles/tree/master/.weechat/py...
And I have a script for Sway (a tiling window manager) which also gives you audible cues:
https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/dotfiles/tree/master/bin/swaytal...
All of this is somewhat incomplete, but it's a good starting point if you want to get used to them and work on improvements while you're still sighted. Good luck, and let me know if I can be of service.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#14I work with many engineers who became blind in a variety of ways. If you provide your email address, I can introduce you to them. Here is my temporary email (docesar172 at lagsixtome dot com) if you do not want your contact to be published.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#15I met a blind front end web developer a few years ago. I'm afraid I don't have any details on his setup, but they do exist.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#16Accessibility testing/engineering is a very important niche within software engineering. You could very easily build a career that will enhance the lives of others in similar situations.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#17If I were in your position, I'd probably get a job at someplace like Facebook or Google. They're huge, cushy companies and probably have resources for SWEs that go blind. Who knows maybe you can go on disability while you're working there, and never have to work again in your life
BTW, I don't know if asking the internet for advice on this subject is a good idea. I imagine it's gonna be mostly speculation. I'd seek out other people that have firsthand experience (i.e. they went blind) and ask what they did and how they're doing...
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#18You might want to check out some things like
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/bh0vm0/emacspeak_how...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-progr...
and also contact some individual programmers with visual impairments.
I don't have particular expertise in this area but I remember meeting a completely blind software developer in 1995 or 1996 (when presumably the tools available were much more limited!). He said that he had successfully pursued this career for a number of years already at that time. However, I think the things he was working with would be things that you'd consider more to be backend engineering.
I also know a computer scientist who is blind and who has continued researching, publishing, and teaching, but as he works in theory, his work might also feel more backend-like.
> - Besides a screen reader, what are some of the best tools for building software with limited vision?
If you decide to learn Braille well, Braille terminals are still a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display
(You might have seen one used in the movie Sneakers!)
Some fluent Braille readers can use these terminals at very high speeds (although people who use screen readers also often get used to using their screen readers at extremely high speeds).
> - Are there blind frontend engineers?
I know you might not want to pigeonhole yourself and work specifically on disability-related projects, but a lot of companies are trying to ensure accessibility of their web sites and so are interested in having developers with specific disabilities to help make sure that that works out properly. I believe there are consultancies of people with specific impairments who develop (and test) UI for accessibility to users with similar disabilities.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#19I just want to throw this out there, just in case you haven't deeply considered it. I'm sure others will answer your question more properly.
Have you considered that maybe you don't want to be doing software engineering and with this precious remaining time would rather prepare for something entirely different? Not sure what your financial situation will be or if you live somewhere with sufficient social support, but if you're going to be blind for life (and you're very young), optimizing for employment (ie. "I'm already a software engineer, may as well commit to that") might not be the best way to live a full and fulfilling life.
Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
#20You should try out a lisp. They have the simplest syntax and the code is quite concise.
> This code turned out to be a lot more complicated than I anticipated. The patch ended up adding a hundred lines of Arc. A hundred lines of Arc! Do you have any idea how many lines of Arc that is? I just looked through the history and the last commit that added that many lines of code was over two years ago when we got Arc to compile to JS. [1]
Clojure is quite well documented, and you can do full stack development with it (clojurescript). Intellij has good support for it, and it stores the state of code as an ast. I think there are addons for dealing with ast (search/replace) as well.
Also, you might want to "settle down" wrt your dev setup (tech, tools), since jumping from project to project, tool to tool won't be that easy. Maybe pick a self contained environment you can learn inside out (smalltalk, tools.deps).
Emacs seems to check all these points, but it's still visual oriented. Maybe build one yourself.