Announcing Sodbeans: A call for participation
- From: Andreas Stefik <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 12:33:46 -0700
To the community,
For several years, I have been working on a team of psychologists, computer
scientists, and others developing tools for blind computer programmers. This
work has ultimately led us to create a tool called Sodbeans, a multimedia
programming environment built into NetBeans 6.5 that uses cutting edge
research to create accessible programming environments for the blind. Our
project is open source, available on source forge (only through subversion
access for now). Right now, our tool includes a custom compiler, an
omniscient debugger (one that goes backwards), and a custom architecture for
outputting sound to the user. Our current development line includes a
significant expansion of our custom compiler, better screen reader
compatibility, and increasing usability for the blind with a number of
programming languages that NetBeans already supports (e.g., php, java, ruby,
grail, C/C++).
As part of our project, we are ramping up development of our tool and are
applying for grant funding through the national science foundation to help.
As part of our grant, we would like to encourage participation from the
community by potentially hiring a programmer or programmers, depending on
the number of applications we receive and the ultimate amount the grant is
for, with significant experience in blind technologies to help in the
development of our tool. More than likely this would be part time, but if we
get lucky with the grant it may be full time.
In addition, since our tool is open source, we would like to strongly
encourage the community to consider applying as a volunteer developer on the
project. Most especially, we could use help in the following areas:
1. Screen reader compatibility
Our tool is a custom environment that outputs sound to sighted and blind
users, which means we have custom sound architectures that need to be
triggered when no screen reader is present and a different architecture that
needs to be used when one is. We could use help getting the screen reader
architecture going. This component is written in C++ and some COM experience
would be helpful. This is programmed as a JNI (Java native interface) DLL in
Visual Studio 2008.
2. Helping fix accessibility issues with other NetBeans supported
programming languages
While most of our development focuses on our custom compiler architecture in
NetBeans, we want sodbeans to increase accessibility for all programming
languages that Netbeans supports, besides the one supported by our compiler.
We welcome developers that would like to work on getting better support for
php, java, or other programming languages. Most of this coding will likely
be done in Java, but it might require some work in various screen reader
scripting languages.
My genuine hope is that there is at least some interest in the community in
trying to make genuinely better, significantly more accessible, tools for
the blind programmer. If you are interested in participating in the project
as a volunteer developer, or you are potentially interested in being hired
on as part of our grant, please express interest in this thread and send
your resume to me (Andreas Stefik) privately at stefika@xxxxxxxxxx I will
see how many I get and potentially contact a few folks for skype or phone
interviews, whatever is easiest.
Sincerely,
Andreas Stefik, Ph.D.
Department of Computer Science
Central Washington University
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