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…
It seems like this level of organization would be beneficial to the sighted community as well. Is this a value that you use to market to customers?
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.
It's just like a language. If you want to read morse code look at that chart, but if you want to hear it quickly you'll need to do audio flashcards. I n Anki it's pretty easy to add cards that have no text but sound which should be all you need.
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…
It seems like this level of organization would be beneficial to the sighted community as well. Is this a value that you use to market to customers?
I have been blind since birth. I recommend downloading NVDA, a free screen reader for windows, and getting used to using it for basic computer use. Getting used to hearing the speech as fast as possible is key to being able to use it efficiently. You said you have hearing loss. Is it bad enough to make speech output useless? If so you would need to learn braille. I would never try front end design as I have no idea w…
Fortunately my hearing loss is stable and correctable using hearing aids.
I would recommend trying to study up on Section 508 compliance https://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/index.html . It's a set of rules that all government orgs in the US must follow for making sure their content is accessible. If you do end up becoming visually impaired you'll end up with a unique perspective on building accessible websites.
The W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the basis for many accessibility laws and more useful for actually learning what makes a site accessible. If you don't already place an emphasis on using semantic HTML markup, learn more about that, it's the foundation of accessible design.
Sighted developers should use a screen reader on their own sites to get an idea of what's up. Very simple changes with semantic HTML can make a world of difference. It's sometimes as simple as swapping tags for their semantic counterparts.
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.
If i went blind tomorrow I would invest heavily in: 1. Emacs and Emacsspeak in particular. Emacs is the richest text-based user experience out there; imagine if all Terminal apps were configurable and scriptable under the same coherent framework. This is why Emacsspeak is an incredibly valuable asset that I would lean heavily on in the event of vision loss. 2. I would invest heavily in making sure that I have a very…
> Emacs and Emacsspeak in particular. Emacs is the richest text-based user experience out there;
My naive expectation is that non-visual editors like ed and ex would be easier to use than visual editors like emacs and vi, but I'm curious to learn more about how people work here. How well do visual editors interact with screen readers? The screen readers would presumably need to offer an interface to reread parts of the screen, and this seems redundant with the non-visual editors that take commands to print like ranges.
I 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…
I am confused why his diagnosis makes any difference... this isn't a fatal disease, so he has no fewer years to live than the rest of us. If he thought being a software engineer was what he wanted to do to live a fulfilling life before his diagnosis, why would that change now?
I think “Remaining time with vision” is the intended reading, as in if there’s some other career OP wants to switch to, it would be easier to do now
Maybe focus more on software design / general architecture.
Or teaching programming concepts. Or some other job that you would be using your knowledge while not having to stare at code for hours on a screen.
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 brilliant and I learned more about hardware and software from him that I did in Masters EE program. Also, he had this insight about the balance between when to use hardware and when to use software that I think is somewhat lacking today (discussion for another day). A lot of people have said that he was the inspiration for the character in the movie Sneakers (Whistler) could be he was really well know but passed away some time ago. I recall a time when we had a big meeting with a lot of executives and he had long hair and a beard and after the meeting one of the big wigs said to me "who is the guys that looks like Jesus, he is a genius". Sorry that I am going on a bit, I cannot even begin to understand what you are going through, but I can tell you that you should not underestimate the impact you can have on others. I wish I had better words here, I wish I knew more about what to suggest to help you technically, but all I know is that someone dealing something with something similar to you meant a great deal to me personally and professionally. Best wishes.