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We Hired a Blind Coder

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Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#51

Post by garrettgrimsley »

su_yuen wrote: post #9
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?

Hi everyone! Thanks for the support and reply. Wasn't expecting this kind of response when we wrote the article. Herwin is visually impaired since birth so he definitely picked up coding with a screen reader. I have notified him of the comments here so he can share more of how he initially picked up coding himself. :)

I saw that you said you do video interviews, have you considered running "blind" interviews like how orchestras do? Applicants to orchestras play from behind a screen so that the judges selecting the candidates cannot see the candidate, and the only metric by which they can judge is the quality of the performance. Determining sex/age/race/etc through voice could be eliminated through audio filtering.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#52

Post by Rapzid »

macspoofing wrote: post #39
dudul wrote: post #15

Nice post, but I was kind of shocked by this part: "A question going through your head is probably: Did we underpay him?" Seriously? What kind of human beings do you think your readers are? Did anyone here really think about that while reading the story?

Not just you. That jumped out to me immediately as well. The whole article felt too self-congratulatory as it was.

I find it interesting that they pay everyone at the same level the same amount. Unless that's an even more ambiguous statement than it reads; "level" being extremely subjective and analogue.. Their answer about pay is very open to interpretation. It has been a sellers market for a while now.

I also agree with you about the feel of the article. Something just doesn't sit right with me about it.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#53

Post by mcshicks »

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?

I used have a blind colleague, I didn't work closely with him but did have a few interactions with him. This was maybe 20 years ago. So people have been doing this a long time. He was working on speech codecs when I worked with him. Anyway he just went to engineering school. At least in California they have people who help you and the school is legally required to make an "accommodation" if needed. That could be a reader, or more time on exam, etc. Here is a brief article on the guy

http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/article.php?id=350

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#54

Post by coroutines »

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 just wanted to add 2 things:

1) Whether you have a disability or not - I have always wondered if I was hired because I was young and could be 'molded' or if I was qualified. Maybe it's at the forefront of your mind if you're disabled, but I'm sure everyone wonders if they got a pass for a superficial reason.

2) It has been my experience that those with a disability overcompensate in other abilities to appear as qualified as their non-disabled colleagues.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#55

Post by bby »

ethomson wrote: post #22

When I was in high school, I had a part time job/internship doing QA and writing some software. I was recruited there by my friend, who was blind, a programmer, and also in high school. He was a great programmer, and very adept at using his screen reader. As far as I know, it only ever gave him one serious complication: since he was a minor, it was set to safe-for-work mode, and it read his coworker's name, a Mr Livs…

I am a virgin programmer.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#56

Post by Ericson2314 »

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.

And refactoring?

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#57

Post by brobinson »

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.

If any blog post deserves to be submitted to HN, "Wearing A Blindfold Made Me A Better Programmer" is it.

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#58

Post by dang »

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.

One of the best things about HN is that by the time I see comments as horrid as this, they've almost always already been flagged by community members. It would be better if they didn't exist in the first place, but that's too much to ask.

To all the users who flag toxic comments like this one: thank you. HN has improved a lot because of you.

(We banned this account for trolling and detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886308 and marked it off-topic.)

Re: We Hired a Blind Coder

#59

Post by busterarm »

macspoofing wrote: post #37
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.

You are a strange duck.

Not so strange. We talked about getting blindfolds for accessibility testing and talked about maybe trying to program with them so we can empathize better with users.

VoiceOver is pretty good. If you're already a touch typist and no-mouse person it's not as big a stretch as you think. Hearing your code read back to you helps with some things.

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