As a blind programmer that lost my eyesight, both arms below the elbows, total hearing loss in left, 80% hearing loss in right, and most of the lower half of my face in a demolition accident in the Army in 1984, and as the founder of the BlindProgramming.com web site, and list serve, and the JAWS Scripts list, I take issue with the statements that you made. So what if it takes me a bit longer to do what sighted people can do? Rehab is not an elevator to the top, but rather a stepping stone on the path to success, and every step I accomplish--with or without assistance--is still a step to success, no matter how you look at it. This list was founded to assist blind want-to-be developers in achieving a step to success, and if I can do it, then anyone--especially a vanilla blind (someone with just blindness), which is the majority of the blind community, can certainly do so. OK, so it took me 7 years to get a 4 year degree, but I got the degree, and that was the goal I set out to do. If you measure individual success according to how it compares to someone else's success, then you're using the wrong yardstick.
Thanks, Dennis Brown----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Neal" <bneal@xxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 1:04 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Hi Matthew, What type of business do you own? How did you get into it? I think it takes a lot of courage and a willing to take risk to run your own business. You can respond off list. My e-mail is: bneal@xxxxxxxx Thank You"Matthew2007" <matthew2007@xxxxxxxxxxx> 11/29/07 6:18 PM >>>Oh oh, your cards are showing now. You're exhibiting cognitive deficits in thinking and over elaboration of another's statements leading your emotions and mind to reach poor conclusions and becoming angry simply based on another's opinions. In other words, your comments are beginning to make no sense and you're getting angry. Pity! Ha! I believe my blindness has given me more success to date than may have been possible for me at the age I lost my sight. Matthew----- Original Message ----- From: "Trouble" <trouble1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:41 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner So we know by your post that blind people should not be seen or even heard of. What a crock of shit! Get off the pity trip. your blind so face the fact! At 11:19 AM 11/29/2007, you wrote:Teddy, I think you really have to understand the culture here in the US.There isnothing but one stupid reality show after another on television, eachtelling the average idiot who participates that they too can be thenexttop singer, model, actor, and other meaningless crap. The fact of thematter is that most of those idiot participants do not possess thetalentto do anything artistic, but each of them has been told in Americanbooks,television, songs, and movies that they too can all be the #1 XYZ iftheysimply try. I think the same thing is going on in the blind community.Every rehab type of educational facility feels its reasonable and preferable to overinflate the blind student's sense of accomplishment.Thisis a very bad mindset to put the average disabled person in becausetheywill end up chasing an impossible dream. I will grant you that therearesome truly talented blind individuals who may succeed in the sightedworld,but they are very few. I feel it is because sighted people overlook deficiencies in many disabled students and simply move them along. Ihavealso met blind students who play up their disability to engendersympathyfrom sighted professors. This of course ultimately means a substandardemployee who doesn't deserve to be in the position they are occupying.While on his media tour to sell his book, I remember I heard aninterviewwith that blind guy who climbed mount Everest a couple of years back.Theradio hosts were lavishing all this awe and amazement at this poorblindperson's impossible mission to the top of the world. this so calledhero tothe blind and all people on the planet conveniently forgot to mentiontothe radio hosts that he had a group of 15 people telling him where toplacehis feet and hands essentially making his blindness an insignificantmatterof importance. By the way, it took him 2 months to climb to the top ofthemountain. I wonder how long it takes sighted people to make the same trek--I think its about 10 days. Why would I pay a blind person thesameamount of money to do average work when I can pay a sighted employeeto dothe same work in 50% less time with greater quality output. My point,blindpeople, please stop with the over inflated sense of self. Sightedpeopleare lavishing tremendous praise on blind people because they can't seethemselves being able to do the same things if they were blind. thefact ofthe matter is that if they too were blind and driven, they would findamanner of getting the job done just the same--might not be done well,butthe job will get done eventually. those who question this post... pulloutyour money (dollar bills), throw it on the ground, then quickly count$16.As a blind person I know exactly what you have to do to accomplishthisgoal so don't give me your: "I can do anything just as well as asightedperson nonsense." Matthew ----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita"<orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:49 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award WinnerYes it is great, I didn't say that it is not. I have also teached the blind users to use a computer, also teachedhtmlin a serial course on a mailing list for the blind in my country, andIthink that the iT field is one of the most accessible fields for theblind. But I said that I don't agree when I hear things like the fact that ablind web designer can be as good as a sighted one. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon" <simoncwn@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:58 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award WinnerOh my, Teddy, that's just so wrong. It really is. My firstimpressionwhen reading your mail was to go off on one, majorly. I won't, formanyreasons. Suffice to say, when people with Jeff's talent do such things theyshould be commended not have their achievements belittled. So muchisachieved, not just for Jeff, but for so many when things like that happens. It encourages the rest of us who want to get into web design/development, and it also raises the bar for blind people, nomatter what field they are in. So well done Jeff, keep up the greatwork.Cheers, Simon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:32 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award WinnerOh yes, that's true, and sometimes the screen reader doesn't evenshowus the correct colors, and even if it show us that 2 words come oneafter another in the same line, it doesn't tell us that maybe thefirstis a static word in a iframe element and the other one is a textwrittendynamicly by a javascript code, and it might scroll slowly up ordownbecoming very confusing for us at a page refresh. I think we shouldn't fight for beeing what we can't be. Oh yes,thereare handicapped people without a leg that participate in differentsports, showing that they can do more, but we all know that theywillnever be equal to a healthy person, no matter how good or bad heis.And let's not forget that the productivity of the work is also important. What we can do would have a very low value if we wouldbeable to do it in a much longer period than a sighted designer. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:35 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winnerwhich except for rare occasions is not practical Marlon, since welivein a sighted world, and the majority of folks that we are going toneedto deal with are sighted, I'm sorry that you have no experience inthevisual view of things, this is one area where I have anadvantage.but... you can't avoid the visual world, it's out there, it's themajority, and so you might as well learn the tricks for dealingwithit, use the standards and templates when and where you can, anddoyour best to adapt. the best description for trying to convey sight to a person thathasnever had it, was spoken by a blind dude that never had sight inhislife, its the description I use now a days, since I have found myselfoftentrying to describe visual aspects to those who have never hadsite.one thing you should do if you haven't, go to a web site, keepyourselfat the top of the page, and turn on the invisible cursor and go upanddown the page to see what it actually looks like, such as, thethatthat instead of the vertical column that jaws presents us with,thatits actually more like a message written in Braille, including thenavigation links which run from left to right across the page, notinthe vertical column that is presented to us. take care, and good luck, inthane . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, Useful Programs,andLinks to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications,visitme at: http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com . to be able to view a simple programming project in several programming languages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at: http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marlon Brandão de Sousa" <splyt.lists@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:01 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award WinnerHello folks, Well I have never seen ... so I have no a ... let's call it ...visualstandards so, although I can technically do it very well ... Ican notplan, like imagine, build ... a nice visual interface, because Idon'tknow what it is expected. A quick example is I beleaved gfirmlythatthe windows explorer put the folder treeview in the top and the listview below it, and I couldn't beleave when a guy tould me naturally that the treeview was in the left and the listview wasinthe right!!!! Similarly, because of the top down aproach most part of screenreadersuse to present web content, I have dificulties to imagine hwatexactlysighted people expect to see in a webpage or something likethis.I can plan the components of the interface, but deciding * andputting* them in the more "apropriate" place or planning what wouldhappen ifone changes their screen resolution or diicovering by teory how browsers would react to it without testing is something very different. If I had been sighted (and lost my sight after the modern lookandfeel's I perhaps would be totally able to build interfaces basedonthe standards of what should be common to folks, but the onlything Ican do for now is build an interface based on someone's specifications. And even then I will spend eforts trying tobuildsomething which belongs to a group of situations that I can'timaginevery well ... and, again, I wouldn't be able to test my ownwork,which seen something pretty nasty to any [programmer I know of... nowthe point is: For sure many blind folks can do gui's, but theywillfeel more confortable and be more productive if they're doing something which has not a visual result as its goal ... whichshouldbe perfectly logical. Thanks Marlon 2007/11/28, jaffar <jaffar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:Hi Jim. Excellent news. Congrats Jeff. Just shows what, ifyou allwill forgive the pun, application will do for one, not to mentionhardwork and determination, and the willingness to try. Cheers! ----- Original Message ----- From: <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:42 PM Subject: Team Excellence Award Winner > > Hi All, > Where I consult, one of our fellow listers was on a team who won a > very > prestigious award. The team developed a highly visible web > application. > Jeff Fidler designed and coded the GUI interface for the site using > HTML, > CSS and Javascript. He used Section 508 and W3C techniques and the > sighted > people in the company rave about it. > > I write this to urge anyone who thinks that someone who is blind > cannot > design Web interfaces well to keep on trying. You can do it. > > 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 > > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," peoplejuststare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system,forfree." Linus Torvalds __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ NOD32 2693 (20071129) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblindTim trouble "Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." --Sam Brown Blindeudora list owner. To subscribe or info: //www.freelists.org/webpage/blindeudora __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ NOD32 2693 (20071129) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
__________View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
