Re: Sodbeans update
- From: Andreas Stefik <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:37:44 -0500
Yes, that's correct, the technology is there and the compiler has been
created, but it will still be some time before it is ready for every day
use. As for language, right now it is only for a custom programming language
(called HOP). What we've been doing is running formal scientific experiments
both on the sounds that come out and the language itself, optimizing it to
to minimize the effort for programming, including the blind. Our latest
study had pretty amazing results, which I am, personally, extremely excited
about. We're almost ready to submit that one for publication.
Now, with that said, we have some contacts at sun microsystems, and what we
are hoping will happen is that, once our proof of concept is in place, the
folks at a number of manufacturers will be able to see what a completely
accessible IDE really looks like and modify their environments to
accommodate a number of languages, including Java. We're only a few person
development team, though, so we can't do it for every environment and
language ourselves. We've also been applying for grants, and if those go
through it would increase the size of our development team, allowing us to
distribute sodbeans to several schools for the blind next summer. I think
that, realistically, we can probably do a release before the summer, but
still, that's technically our deadline.
Stefik
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:04 AM, Jared Wright <wright.jaredm@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> This is for Netbeans, which is in fact the IDE I personally hear the most
> about for Java. But it still sounds like its a ways off still at the moment
> from everyday use. Very cool stuff though.
>
> JW
>
>
> On 9/25/2009 7:06 AM, Stanzel, Susan - Kansas City, MO wrote:
>
> Hi Listers,
>
> Hi Listers,
>
> I assume this is for something other than Java. I need something like this
> for Java. What languages will this work with? It sounds simply fabulous.
>
> Susie Stanzel programmer, U.S.D.A.
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [
> mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
> *On Behalf Of *Andreas Stefik
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 24, 2009 4:48 PM
> *To:* programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Sodbeans
> *Subject:* Sodbeans update
>
> Hello folks,
>
> I wanted to send a quick update to this list with an update on the sodbeans
> project. Here goes!
>
> 1. We have completed the bare bones implementation of functions and objects
> into the guts of our custom compiler. This is a huge amount of work and it
> is still extremely buggy, but the architecture is more or less in place.
> This might not sound hard, but because our auditory debugger has to be
> "linked" to it, and it also has to go backwards, this is a very difficult
> piece of code to implement.
>
> 2. We are nearly finished with an auditory navigation tool for navigating
> between classes and methods. This is a navigation tool when not in the
> editor; the editor navigation will happen later.
>
> 3. We have finished implementing our auditory system into the debugger and
> are very proud of what we have so far. Virtually everything the debugger
> does now "talks." Here's some examples of stepping over and back in the
> debugger:
>
>
> A. If you instantiate an object the debugger will say, "Creating Object"
> then its name. If you Step back (the opposite of step over in our reversing
> debugger), it will say, "Destroying object" then its name.
>
> B. If you step over a line of code with an assignment statement, our
> debugger says "Set" variable name "to" then its value.
>
> C. If you step over an if statement, it tells you that you stepped over an
> if and its value (true or false).
>
> D. If you execute a function forward our debugger will say, "Calling
> method" then its name, whereas in reverse it says "Uncalling method" and
> again its name.
>
> 4. Next on our list, besides general bug fixing, is a redesign of the watch
> window to make it more accessible. We are still floating ideas around the
> office, but we've got a few possibilities that we think have real potential.
>
> 5. One of the blind developers that works with us on the project just
> completed a significant amount of work on the text-to-speech integration on
> macintosh. We now use sodbeans regularly on the mac.
>
>
> So there's an update for those of you folks interested in the project.
> There's still an enormous amount of testing and programming that we need to
> do before we release, but we have been able to get a substantial amount of
> implementation finished in a time frame that is much faster than we
> originally expected. If all goes well, we should be able to run some
> internal usability studies within a few months.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andreas Stefik, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Computer Science
> Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
>
>
>
>
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