21–30 of 73 posts
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Looks like screen readers (adults run them at incredible speeds) + incredible memory and skill + any text-based language
Disclaimer: Fully blind programmer, have been for several years,learned as a teenager, later went on to teach various blind individuals as a side hustle for a while, culminating in a 2 month course done for the folks who make CodeJumper. With all that out of the way, let's go.
First, let me just comment on that comment by @conviencefee999. Kindly do your research before chiming into a discussion you quite clearly know very little about. I don't know your unique set of circumstances, but stating that one of the most viable career paths for a blind individual is not a viable career path is rather against the current and, as you yourself helpfully point out, anything but helpful. While it is true that the barrier to entry is still somewhat present, particularly for the age group OP is asking about, it can absolutely be done. Case and point being myself, as well as various others I know of. There are discussion groups about this topic, mostly in the form of the admittedly rather antiquated mailing list. An example is program-l over at freelists.org.
Second, re: Python's indentation situation. I would actually argue that Python is a great starting point, because screen readers are able to either verbally or audibly indicate indentation levels when required, particularly on Windows and up to a point, in a more limited fashion, on Mac OS. This makes the "invisible characters" issue somewhat less problematic, and a braille display alleviates this issue even more, provided the blind computer user in question has access to one, which is more common in Europe than it is over in the States.
Now as for a couple recommendations.
Scratch works on the principle of instant gratification first and foremost: you do, you see. Right away. And it can be difficult to replicate that experience non-visually, particularly for younger children. I haven't really found a 100% equivalent alternative.
I worked with a group of researchers several months ago that is working on an accessible interface to Blockly, a Scratch competitor in a lot of respects, which came as close as I can think of a fully analogous experience. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that project is faring at the moment and if they ever made it further than the prototype I got to test back then.
The things I can think of that come closest are:
* Swift Playgrounds (mac/iPad): VoiceOver, Apple's screen reader, supports these environments rather well, describing the visuals within the game worlds you work in, so this could be something to look into.
* Freecodecamp/codecademy: I myself started learning how to program by writing HTML back when I was 10 or so. I liked the idea of writing some arcane things into a notepad and seeing it come alive on the page in front of me, and FreeCodeCamp essentially does that same thing, but gamifies it a bit more. That could be something to look into.
* SonicPie: SOnicPie is a ruby environment for creating music using code. There's a pretty accessible tutorial for newcomers that could work for, say, a 10-year-old I think, provided they have a love for music and sound. Could be another avenue to try, although the sonicPie editor isn't as accessible as it could be and takes a bit of getting used to.
I hope this helps a bit :)
Although the language is not widely known, the language creator posted to Hacker News in 2018:
> Hi all, this is Andreas Stefik (I invented Quorum)....First, people saying Quorum was originally designed for blind children are correct. Originally, we were toying with the idea of adjusting syntax to make it easier to read out loud through a screen reader. That stemmed from observing young blind programmers use a variety of programming languages on one of my first National Science Foundation projects. Phrases like, “for int I equals semicolon, I less then semicolon I plus plus” or other phrases can be extraordinarily difficult to listen to, especially if you are child.
> This is one reason why Quorum is used so heavily at schools for the blind or visually impaired in the U.S. and elsewhere. We haven’t been just for the blind in a long-time, but I still care about that community quite a bit and we work hard to make things accessible. There’s a ton more to discuss in that area, but I want to move on to “evidence."
Full comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17849357
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This post is simply wrong.
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some people can not picture things in their head (aphantasia), or some people can not hear their thoughts? others can only see emotions as colors, or sounds as colors
because our output is normalized through language and symbols, it seems we are somewhat similar, but this is deceptive, as the difference in thought between two individuals can be as vast as between an octopus and a crow
and i am certainly sure that anyone "sees" code in their own way
Hoo boy, this is a fun one :) Disclaimer: Fully blind programmer, have been for several years,learned as a teenager, later went on to teach various blind individuals as a side hustle for a while, culminating in a 2 month course done for the folks who make CodeJumper. With all that out of the way, let's go. First, let me just comment on that comment by @conviencefee999. Kindly do your research before chiming into a di…
As a formerly blind and currently visually impaired person who programs, I'd even go so far as to argue there are some benefits to being blind. Humans are visual creatures, but computers aren't, and one of the stumbling blocks for humans learning to speak computer is wanting or needing visual representations of things and building layers of abstraction in part to deal with that need. We separate 'where', 'when', and 'why' a lot easier, I think.
Some real adult programming language which can be used with braille terminal and/or screenreader. However as I am not user of any of those things I cannot recommend which language works with them, but I would definitely try python.
I've taught many people to program and can safely say python is an awful first language even for sighted users. Invisible characters being part of the syntax is awful. Scheme IMO is the best for both sighted and blind people. There's very minimal syntax and I'd imagine a good editor with s-expression motions would make things much easier if you can't see.
Edit: I have no idea where I got 10 years old from, the post clearly doesn't list ages. In any case, I am leaving it on the offhand chance someone chimes in with a story about their kids learning scheme.
littleBits are their electonic components kits that can be easily assembled with magnet. According to this paper[1], they can be suitable for visually impaired kids.
[0] https://sphero.com/collections/coding-robots
[1] https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/view/6673/895...