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

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

#171

Post by mwcampbell »

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…

On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email? Do you also have a speech synthesis plugin for your aerc email client? Or do you use it with a generic screen reader for terminals? If the latter, which screen reader?

I've found that, counter-intuitively, a fully accessible GUI program with a good GUI screen reader is easier to use than a screen-oriented terminal program with a screen reader. The trouble with the latter is that the user has to understand visual concepts like highlighting, the meaning of special characters, etc.

Of course, an application or plugin that's tailor-made for doing a particular task with speech output is better than either of those other choices -- as long as you don't have to use an application that's overall inferior (e.g. using the Emacs/W3 web browser with Emacspeak as opposed to a mainstream browser).

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

#172

Post by xenadu02 »

taywrobel wrote: post #90

I’m not sure if you’re willing to consider a change of employer, but when I worked at Apple, their accessibility team never ceased to amaze me. They have several blind, as well as deaf and paralyzed engineers on their A11Y team. I’d argue that’s a large part of why the accessibility story on iOS is as good as it is. Having engineers that have various disabilities work on the accessibility of their products helps ensu…

Apple definitely has blind employees both working in accessibility and in other groups.

I only mention that to say don't discount yourself even if you're blind (or deaf, etc). There are plenty of engineering teams at Apple that would be happy to have you.

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

#173

Post by ddevault »

mwcampbell wrote: post #171
ddevault wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email? Do you also have a speech synthesis plugin for your aerc email client? Or do you use it with a generic screen reader for terminals? If the latter, which screen reader? I've found that, counter-intuitively, a fully accessible GUI program with a good GUI screen reader is easier to use than a screen-oriented terminal program with a screen reader. The troub…

>On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email?

Poorly. I want to improve aerc in this respect. For the time being, I use a mix of my braille reader (brltty) and piping emails into vipe so I can use my vim plugin to read them.

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

#174

Post by richrichardsson »

zw123456 wrote: post #110

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 brilli…

I always assumed Whistler in Sneakers was a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joybubbles

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

#175

Post by peterlk »

richardw wrote: post #164
27182818284 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience for when I taught myself the Dvorak layout years ago. My fingers learned the common motion for whole words first. Actually, I'm not sure I could draw the layout of the qwerty keyboard I'm typing on right now from memory either.

Just for a laugh, try changing your phone keyboard to Dvorak. It seemed like a good idea but felt alien to see the keys I naturally use. Swiping was just ridiculous. Obviously it’s just practice but I don’t mind using qwerty on my phone. It keeps it vaguely present in my memory.

I did this many years ago, and am now terribly slow at typing on a phone with a qwerty keyboard, and still cannot use a Dvorak keyboard on my computer...

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

#176

Post by mburst »

eli wrote: post #46
mburst wrote: post #23

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.

Most US universities need to comply too

Yea my first programming job was translating word docs to accessible html for universities. The jobs around section 508 compliance seem mainly government related

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

#177

Post by dang »

Galaxity wrote: post #170
dang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't do that, even if another comment rubs you the wrong way. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Asking for personal decency toward another human being is a banning offense here?

"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 accident, because it's so common in online discussion generally, indeed has become the default. It takes conscious work to have a place that doesn't fall into it. That's what we're trying for.

Note this one, for example: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit to heart, we'd be grateful.

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

#178

Post by crashbunny »

I read a blog post a while ago that was quite remarkable. From memory it was someone going blind (your age) while studying law, and halfway through couldn't read any more.

Determined to finish his degree he developed the ability to listed to audiobooks ludicrously fast, way faster than reading, and it opened up a whole new world to him that was previously hidden.

Chumhumming around today I'm pretty sure the man's name is Isaac Lidsky. He's done TED talks and been interviewed on podcasts, written blogs posts, etc.

Go check him out and even try and contact him.

Good luck. I reckon you'll be strong enough, prepared enough, and with a little help from lots of people be able to thrive.

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

#179

Post by esoteriq »

Hello! I have Type I Usher myself and my vision tanked when I was 27 (~8 years ago). I'm a writer, so I can't give you much programming advice but I've been through the gamut in terms of technology and life changes. I'm happy to share what has and hasn't worked for me. My email is in my profile.

I do want to say one thing, though: It absolutely sucks at first but you'll adapt. One day at a time.

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

#180

Post by DonHopkins »

mwcampbell wrote: post #136
RobMurray wrote: post #81

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…

Not only is Python not problematic when using a screen reader, but there are blind programmers who gladly choose Python over other languages. The NVDA screen reader, mentioned in the parent comment, is developed primarily by blind programmers, in Python. The Orca screen reader for GNOME was written by a blind friend of mine, in Python. I have another blind friend who wrote and sold several accessible apps for Windows…

You might also want to check out "dragonfly", which is a Python based system for integrating applications with speech recognition and synthesis, and includes a large library of pre-existing modules for many popular applications:

https://pypi.org/project/dragonfly/

Project description:

Dragonfly offers a powerful Python interface to speech recognition and a high-level language object model to easily create and use voice commands. Dragonfly supports following speech recognition engines:

Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS), a product of Nuance

Windows Speech Recognition (WSR), included with Microsoft Windows Vista and freely available for Windows XP

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