It certainly gives me more context to work with, and let me say that I appreciate the constructive, conversational reply instead of the hostility I think I'd have gotten a lot of places in response to that message. Make no mistake, I think the notion of a blind community sticking together and helping each other solve the challenges we face as nonsighted computer scientists is a fruitful endeavor. What I am most hesitant about is the notion of creating an isolated environment where blind people may be inclined to think they need to learn programming as well as investing the time and money into attempting to acquire acreditation to validate such an environment. Would it be useful for the best and brightest among us to conduct webinars or informal lessons specifically targeted at overcoming access hurdles in the world of programming? Absolutely! Courses on scripting the various screen readers, for instance, are useful, because that is knowledge that only the blind community has a reason to have. But I think when you get into validating a complete learning environment just for blind programmers, you disassociate those blind students from the very valuable resources that are useful to us as well as everyone else.
I guess where we might not completely agree is that I think there is very little for which blind people need their own specialized version, especially in the digitized world of computer programming. I don't feel a proficient blind programmer's time is best used teaching a course on object oriented programming concepts specifically for blind people. OOP itself doesn't care if you can see or not. MIT already has such a course online available for all aspiring programmers, blind and sighted, and for free nonetheless! Sourcecode and other course materials are readily downloadable and quite accessible.
You don't see me ask many general programming questions on this list, but I can assure you I have them. A lot of them. But I field those on forums that are for programmers in general, communities made up of thousdands of programmers instead of the dozens that are on this list. This grants me both a greater variety of expertise to tap into and usually far faster responses to my questions. . The only questions I field on this list are related to tools or techniques that directly relate to constructing a blind-friendly working environment for my projects. Why propogate the idea that a blind coder has to learn from another blind coder? It just isn't the case, in my opinion. The only things a blind coder has to learn from another blind coder, in my view, relate to how to set up a development environment that accommodates our assistive technology. And, as I mentioned yesterday, I feel this is in the grand scheme of things a small part of programming education.
On 4/8/2011 9:18 AM, Homme, James wrote:
Hi Jared, I have a development background, but my development skills are old. I started out as a Cobol programmer when a degree wasn't required. I went to a specialized school for people with disabilities here in Pittsburgh to learn Cobol. At work, I moved on to doing Lotus Formula language, which is something like a batch language, and LotusScript, which is a lot like QuickBasic or VBScript. I also know bits of SQL, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, and HTML, although I know HTML 4.1 and XHTML very well. I'm learning Java because we are retiring Lotus Notes soon, here. I have attempted to learn Python several times. So you are right that I have many holes in my Computer Science knowledge. Regarding having a separatist environment, I'm unsure how I feel about that. When I think about it, this list is sort of a separatist environment that much of the time discusses how to do things with assistive technology. The thing I want in a school, I guess, is to be able to have structure, which I realize I can get in a non-separatist environment, but still have people who are like me, in that they are also using assistive technology to do what they do. So maybe I almost already have what I want. Maybe I still buy into the assumption that blind people need special stuff. I went to school in an institutional environment, before we had what used to be called mainstreaming. Does that answer help at all? Thanks. Jim Jim Homme, Usability Services, Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme Highmark recipients, Read my accessibility blog. Discuss accessibility here. Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility advice -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jared Wright Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 8:50 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers Some reasoning to support this would be helpful. Absolutely no disrespect meant, but you do not seem to be in the workplace in a typical software development capacity given your fairly rudimentary questions on the list about modern programming concepts. That really is not meant as a criticism, please do not take it as such. Also please correct me if my observations have lead me to the wrong conclusion. But usability/accessibility analysis and mainstream software engineering are like steak and potatoes. Both play an important role in a great meal but are very different in their preparation. so some additional context for why you feel a separatist educational environment for programming would be beneficial would help me understand why you take the position you do. On 4/8/2011 7:26 AM, Homme, James wrote:Hi, As someone already in the work place, I think it would be a good thing. Jim Jim Homme, Usability Services, Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme Highmark recipients, Read my accessibility blog. Discuss accessibility here. Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility advice -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jared Wright Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 4:29 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers I also am inclined to agree with this. I'm just finished with school and haven't gotten to see first hand just how much of an impact it will have in the workforce, I admit, but I know I learned a lot about not just programming but about working smoothly on a development team otherwise made up of sighted developers by going to a "normal" university for CompSci. My fear would be that in a special environment for blind programming instruction all the tools used for class would be the most accessible ones available. Then a student would get into the work force with an employer who doesn't use those ideal accessible tools and the student would be ill-equipped to problem solve this challenge. I think having a vibrant, active community of blind coders working on things like nonvisualdevelopment.org and contributing to forums like this one is a great way to help address the unique challenges of being a blind coder, but in the grand scheme of things I feel I spend about 10% of my time devoted to programming and related pursuits finding blind-friendly ways of using tools or environments. The other 90% is the same process of learning programming that my sighted peers take on. I also do think there would be issues with many employers disregarding or harboring skepticism of applicants who listed a specialized school for blind people on a resumé. Still, a good idea to kick around and get a variety of prospectives on. On 4/7/2011 3:23 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:I agree with this as well. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 1:08 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers I have to say this even though I think there is a place for what you're thinking of. I hate sepertive schools. One of the things that made me a good programmer was competing against the people I would be competing against in the work world In the academic world. The salt Lake community college had a class run by novel that taught blind people to code for Novel OS but I found the students that came out of their knew a single thing and not very well. Now with that said if the standards are high enough a school like this could be a good benefit but you have to be careful not to dumb down both the speed of learning or quality thereof. Of course that is true for all schools. One last thing though that the regular schools taught me. That is part of life as a blind coder is finding ways to cope with problems that you run into. If you have things handed to you, you might not be as affective when you get out in the work world. Ken Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Cox Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:03 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers This is still in the dumb-idea phase, and I don't have any funding lined up to get this started. That said... I have not been able to find any on-line school for teaching blind people to become professional programmers. I feel the world needs such an organization. I am not able to start such a school myself, but I would be interested in assisting social entrepreneurs in starting such a venture. I it would best be implemented as a for-profit social entrepreneurial venture. You can read about social entrepreneurs here: http://www.ashoka.org/social_entrepreneur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship I'm thinking it could be a Low Profit Corporation (LPC) founded to run the school for a profit. Everyone hired in teaching or management would be vision impaired or blind. Students would attend classes on-line, and could be anywhere in the world. Classes would not be free (maybe $1,000 per 1-semester course?). Students who are too poor to pay would be expected to do well in their courses and make up their fees by assisting teaching of those courses in later semesters. They might also be required to work for an associated consulting company to earn tuition. Students would be encouraged to help mentor each other in any case. Associated with the school could be a software consulting services company. The company would only hire vision impaired programmers, and students wanting to work for the company could take classes designed to train them in the skills they'll need. The company might encourage it's employees to spend one day a week on FOSS projects of their interest, which hopefully would include improving accessibility. Rough numbers to back up the idea: There are around 15 million people with "severe" vision impairments in the US. Roughly half of those people are too old. Half of the rest may have other impairments that would prevent them from becoming programmers. In the general population, there are 1 programmer out of every 500 people in the US. I would expect a ratio at least that high among the blind, or about 7,500 professional programmers in the US alone. If we took 20 years to train that many, it'd be 375 new students per year, and assuming a two year program, we'd have 750 students. If only half paid the class fees, but took three classes at a time (a full load), that'd be $3,000*750*2 = $4.5 million per year. My kids go to a school which happens to have about 750 students and a budget of just over $4 million per year, and that includes paying for a school. So, that math seems to work out, but we're not talking about anyone making a billion dollars in this effort. This is not a VC-fundable idea, but it might attract funding from groups that invest in socially beneficial startups. I know a couple of good candidates to start this school, and one might be interested in actually doing it. Are there any good blind or vision impaired people you guys could recommend for me to talk to? I think the key would be finding the right couple of guys. 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