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We Hired a Blind Coder

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Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#41

Post by satori99 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #8

One of my friends is a blind coder (and he sometimes comments here on HN), and he's had a very hard time getting regular work as a coder, even for things that seem obvious (like testing and fixing apps and sites for accessibility). He's bright and built his own screen reader for Android, among other things. But, I think that's a common experience for folks with disabilities; they begin to feel like they have to apolo…

> I've seen so many interesting/disappointing behaviors from people when it comes to people with disabilities.

The city I live in had a systematic problem with loud speakers announcements on trains. Blind people rely on these announcements to know which station they are at. And trains speaker systems were mostly broken or heavily distorted on nearly every carriage.

The remarkable thing about this was that the only blind person making complaints was an Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, who made a written complaint (to himself) each time he found it hard to get off at the right station while going to his job [1].

I share a house with my physically disabled sister who deals with similar problems nearly everyday. My sister was lucky enough to find employment with a government agency that takes it's responsibilities towards disabled people seriously, but many disabled people still disengage from society because of the extreme hassle involved in something so simple for the rest of us, like getting to work.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/blind-rage-over-railcorps-silent-s...

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#42

Post by eccfcco15 »

filleokus wrote: post #26

Nice story! One thing I have been thinking about, for completely blind (English isn't my native language, so sorry for not using the correct/polite terminology) users, (that have 0% vision on both eyes) it would be possible to use a laptop without a screen, I guess. Essentially simulating the screen for the screen reader to work with, but not rendering the output anywhere (or even having the screen hardware to render…

I actually took a laptop, and took it apart (for other reasons). Putting it back together, I purposely didn't put on the screen. It works just fine. I usually use it over ssh, but I can plug in a monitor, and it does think that the internal monitor is still connected. So, I think you can do that on regular hardware. I'm not blind, so I wouldn't know how to operate it without the display, though.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#43

Post by alisson »

filleokus wrote: post #26

Nice story! One thing I have been thinking about, for completely blind (English isn't my native language, so sorry for not using the correct/polite terminology) users, (that have 0% vision on both eyes) it would be possible to use a laptop without a screen, I guess. Essentially simulating the screen for the screen reader to work with, but not rendering the output anywhere (or even having the screen hardware to render…

The battery would last so much more, cool idea!

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#44

Post by teraflop »

samfisher83 wrote: post #23

How do big companies that love doing white boarding interview blind people. I am guessing due to ADA they have to give them some other test?

I've done it, and it's not that hard. Anything that you would normally write or draw on the whiteboard to explain the problem, you just explain verbally instead. I found it helpful to write everything out on paper anyway to keep my explanation organized.

The candidate brought along their own laptop with a screen reader and a nifty Braille display, so when it was time to actually write some code, they just fired up Emacs and we were good to go.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#45

Post by CarVac »

backlava wrote: post #30

I think most programmers don't realize how much vision holds them back. I've been coding blindfolded for over a month and I'm never going back. If you are a touch typist what do you need to see ? Not looking at things helps me to focus. I do take the blindfold off while checking my work an during some parts of debugging.

Could you share any details of a) how you code blindfolded and b) how you learned to code blindfolded?

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#46

Post by chronic80 »

Why the hell would you hire a blind coder to ship your feature by next week when you can find an equal or better (white/Asian male) engineer to do the same thing. By definition, the blind coder is limited compared to non-disabled people. It's a purely business decision. No hard feelings, but I'd rather not have a blind person on my team or organization. Unless it is for PR.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#47

Post by CarVac »

filleokus wrote: post #26

Nice story! One thing I have been thinking about, for completely blind (English isn't my native language, so sorry for not using the correct/polite terminology) users, (that have 0% vision on both eyes) it would be possible to use a laptop without a screen, I guess. Essentially simulating the screen for the screen reader to work with, but not rendering the output anywhere (or even having the screen hardware to render…

My thoughts were that instead of merely having a laptop without the screen, someone could use just a wireless keyboard with a phone.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#48

Post by schoen »

satori99 wrote: post #41
SwellJoe wrote: post #8

One of my friends is a blind coder (and he sometimes comments here on HN), and he's had a very hard time getting regular work as a coder, even for things that seem obvious (like testing and fixing apps and sites for accessibility). He's bright and built his own screen reader for Android, among other things. But, I think that's a common experience for folks with disabilities; they begin to feel like they have to apolo…

> I've seen so many interesting/disappointing behaviors from people when it comes to people with disabilities. The city I live in had a systematic problem with loud speakers announcements on trains. Blind people rely on these announcements to know which station they are at. And trains speaker systems were mostly broken or heavily distorted on nearly every carriage. The remarkable thing about this was that the only bl…

> who made a written complaint (to himself) each time he found it hard to get off at the right station

I was going to ask whether there was then a civil service ethics rule that required him to recuse himself from investigating his own complaint. But the article already addressed that:

> Each complaint, which will have to be addressed by others within the commission [...]

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#49

Post by TheCoelacanth »

chronic80 wrote: post #46

Why the hell would you hire a blind coder to ship your feature by next week when you can find an equal or better (white/Asian male) engineer to do the same thing. By definition, the blind coder is limited compared to non-disabled people. It's a purely business decision. No hard feelings, but I'd rather not have a blind person on my team or organization. Unless it is for PR.

What makes you think that you can find an equal or better engineer? When you're hiring you don't just get to order an engineer who precisely fits your specifications; you have to choose from real people who are all imperfect in one way or another.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#50

Post by msb »

mcweaksauce wrote: post #2

I think it is totally reasonable that a blind person could code, but how does a blind person learn how to code initially? Did he become blind later on after learning how to code?

This question came up on StackOverflow a number of years ago and sparked an insightful conversation. I recommend reading through the thread to anyone interested.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-progra...

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