Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers
- From: Bill Cox <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 07:08:02 -0400
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Dave <davidct1209@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If someone's serious
> about doing professional development along side sighted colleagues,
> you will have to "roll" your own accessibility and often times that
> means digging into systems or spending e xtra time automating tasks.
> It's not for everyone :). In short, that means you need an even
> deeper understanding of frameworks, OS's, and general computer science
> theory than your average "programmer".
Interesting. In the late 1990's, I lost the ability to type for three
years, and had to program by voice. RSI injuries are common in
Silicon Valley, and I have a bunch of friends who had to go on long
term disability. There are a lot of people now who do code by voice,
but it's pretty hard, and back then, there were zero tools to help
other than Dragon Dictate. I was advised to go on long term
disability, but instead wrote 1,600 custom Emacs macros that I could
speak to do my job. It really wasn't something I could generally
recommend.
Now with central vision loss, I was advised that Windows has the best
accessibility, but my job is in Linux. So, I hacked with the Vinux
guys and got the system to work well enough for my needs. The slow
TTS engines were driving me nuts, so I wrote libsonic so I could
listen fast on Android or anywhere else.
So, I guess I have to agree that at least in my own experience, being
a programmer with a disability isn't easy, and you either have to
confine yourself to what works well today, or be willing to roll your
own. I know that in RSI land, most programmers are not willing to go
that far. Is it similar in vision impairment land? People just
aren't willing to do what is required to make their own environment
work? Because what we really need isn't a bunch of guys making money
in Java/Eclipse, or C++/Visual Studio. We need guys capable of making
more and more environments easy and productive to use. We need those
guys who can roll their own when needed.
Bill
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