Re: Seeking feedback from speech users of Python

Hi Jamal,
Since I am a braille user for things involving accuracy, I sort of depend
on it to some degree for python. I will be starting to do Python at home. I
don't use braille there. I don't foresee an indentation problem there
either though. Braille makes some things more convenient. Things like not
having to arrow over so many characters when checking accuracy and being
able to press cursor routing buttons to make the cursor jump to the exact
cell where I want to input things. I've gotten used to feeling the
indentations. That helps me section off things mentally.

Regarding beeps and so on, my indentation scheme plays a door lock close at
level 0 and notes of the C major scale up to level 6. When the indentation
goes down by one note, I know that something above has closed. This, of
course, assumes that I have indented my code properly. Since I usually
write code and test it in little bits, I usually don't have a problem with
indentation compiler errors. That said, though, I will experiment with the
new feature to see what I think of it. Is it documented in the
documentation file?

Regarding spaces and tabs, I don't use tabs in EdSharp because EdSharp
indents them using eight spaces. I would use them if I could control how
many spaces they turned into. Then, at the end of my session, I would
probably turn tabs into four spaces right before I distributed source code,
since that seems to be the preferred way of doing things. For braille,
though, I might want it to go all the way down to one space if I could get
used to it. I like two right now though.


James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810

"Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the
world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead



                                                                           
             "Jamal Mazrui"                                                
             <empower@xxxxxxxx                                             
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                                       Re: Seeking feedback from speech    
                                       users of Python                     
             12/17/2007 08:56                                              
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Thanks for the feedback, Jim.

An advantage of PyBrace over beeps or words that indicate a change of
indentation is that a comment is automatically generated that indicates
what code block has closed.  Thus, one does not have to recall that a
"while" was two beeps in and and "if" was one beep.

Yes, in EdSharp, Alt+Home goes to the first nonblank character of a line,
and indeed, its purpose is to skip over indentation.  Home without the Alt
modifier key is just easier and more habitual to press, and the purpose of
PyBrace is to maximize usability for a speech and keyboard user.

Regarding space versus tab for indentation, does one work better when JAWS
displays a web page with the virtual buffer?  Richard has reported that
some Python code loses its indentation in this mode, whereas other
indentation is preserved.  Obviously, preserving it is important when
reading Python code on the web.  I was guessing that a tab character was
more likely to be preserved than a space, so that was partly why I chose
it ininitially, but I was guessing there.  To me, tab also makes more
sense logically because a single tab character can be used rather than
multiple spaces, and the user can often adjust the display width of a tab
character in his or her editor.  I do recall, however, that Perl style
guidelines recommend spaces (4) and Ruby's recommend them as well (2),
so it does not surprise me that Python guidelines have developed
similarly.  I will probably make EdSharp use whatever the user has set for
the IndentationUnit in the configuration dialog.

To what extent do you use braille when programming in Python?

Jamal
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:37:57 -0500
> From: james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Seeking feedback from speech users of Python
>
> Hi Jamal,
> While I appreciate the effort you put in to make this feature, I have
some
> feedback. I use  JAWS indentation scheme that plays notes for indent
> levels. That scheme is very efficient for me because it plays the notes
as
> the lines are beginning to speak. That is more efficient than waiting for
> JAWS or EdSharp to tell me the indent level. Second, I think the feature
> needs to use spaces instead of tabs because that is the feedback I am
> hearing from the Python Tutor list.
>
> Jim
>
> James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
> james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
>
> "Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the
> world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
>
>
>
>
>              "Jamal Mazrui"
>              <empower@xxxxxxxx
>              t>
To
>              Sent by:                  programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>              programmingblind-
cc
>              bounce@freelists.
>              org
Subject
>                                        Seeking feedback from speech users
>                                        of Python
>              12/14/2007 10:36
>              PM
>
>
>              Please respond to
>              programmingblind@
>                freelists.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I have included an experimental feature in EdSharp
> http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe
>
> In seeking a more efficient way of managing the indentation requirement,
I
> am trying a coding style called PyBrace, where the colon and indented
> block are replaced by a set of curly braces surrounding the block.
> Alt+Shift+LeftBracket (think of the brace character) turns either all or
> selected text into this style of code, which makes it easy to understand
> the structure with speech.
>
> The inverse command is called PyDent, Alt+LeftBracket, which converts
from
> PyBrace format to the equivalent indentation required by the Python
> interpreter.
>
> PyBrace assumes that the opening brace will be at the end of the line of
> text that starts the block, and the closing brace will be on a line by
> itself.  Also, PyDent assumes that a single tab character is used for
each
> level of indentation -- though I intend to support other indentation
> conventions as well if this approach seems productive.
>
> I have been able to convert to and from PyBrace and run a Python script
> successfully (the Python fruit basket program).  If anyone else can try
> this approach, and let me know your results as well as any other ideas
for
> improvement, that would be helpful.
>
> Jamal
>
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