And how do you plan to do this? All I said was that I am in college for a cs degree to become a programmer. I would love to know what "unrealistic views" I am filled with. I know my blindness can limit me and, if I absolutely cannot find a way to adapt something so I can do it, too bad for me and I get on with my life. Thanks to a wonderful mother, who raised myself and my legally blind sister as a single parent, I am a second lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, am on the Honor Guard team for CAP where we spin/throw rifles to each other; I play airsoft (a bit like paintball), ride a bike, play guitar for a worship team on campus, and lead a perfectly normal life. I know that, realistically, I cannot walk into the buffet-style cafeteria and serve myself. I simply present my ID card to the person on duty to have it scanned (to subtract one meal from my weekly meal plan), then wait while that person goes and gets someone to help me through the line and to find an empty table. I know that if I tried to walk around campus without my white cane, no matter how well I think I know it, I would soon find some unexpected obstacle and be sorry I didn't have the cane; I am fine with this and consider my cane no different from someone putting on glasses to correct vision. (In its way, does a cane not do the same thing") I would be lost without my BrailleNote and am not ashamed to admit that I rely on something other than myself and a slate and stylus. Need I go on? Please tell me if I misunderstood you, but your message seemed rather clear. If you want any more information do not hesitate to ask; I am happy to share, but still fail to see how I am unrealistic because I have never been exposed to the real world. I would say that running a CAP squadron for over a year is pretty real, wouldn't you? In CAP there is no room for putting people on pedestals just because they can do something. Sure people have written articles about the blind cadet and such, but I always try to discourage this and absolutely do not let any of it make me feel like I am above anyone else in the program. CAP has taught me an incredible amount, and it is a good exposure to the "real world". http://www.cap.gov for more info.
Have a great day, Alex
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew2007" <matthew2007@xxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date sent: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:25:01 -0800 Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
At this point you're a case study, which I will use to
tentatively prove my
hypothesis that blind children are filled with unrealistic views
of the
world, and because they haven't seen most of the world outside of
their
family units and local community, they don't have a true
appreciation of the
reality they are missing out on.
Matthew ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Parks" <mehgcap@xxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:51 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
I have been blind since birth. I can see some, but I use braille, a screen reader, a cane (hopefully a dog next spring) and so on. This has not stopped me from doing anything--even as I write this I am getting ready to do some final debugging of a blackjack java program I had to write for a class.
Have a great day, Alex
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew2007" <matthew2007@xxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date sent: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:32:11 -0800 Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Alex, how old were you when you lost your sight?
Matthew ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Parks" <mehgcap@xxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:26 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
I agree, Rick. Some things are not going to happen for blind people--if I get on a plane and the pilot is blind, I am most certainly getting right back off. However, I know many blind people who are very successful at whatever they do, from running a vending machine business to hiking the Apalation (sorry for the spelling) Trail. I am blind and want a degree in computer science so I can work for HW or a similar company. Just because someone cannot see means nothing, especially in this age of such powerful and "smart" technology. As I said, some things are out of the reach of people with no sight but in 50 years. Who knows? Since this is supposed to be a list about programming, though, can we please get it back on track and not have 20+ messages a day on this topic?
Have a great day, Alex
----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Harmon" <rickharmon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date sent: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:04:45 -0500 Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Matthew,
It seems as if you aren't willing to give someone qualified to dotheir joba chance if they are blind? I hope this isn't so since you areblindyourself. I'd hate to see someone discriminate against you soelybecause ofyour being blind. I know I don't want to be discriminatedagainst soleybecause of my being blind. I'm not sure if your just trying toprove apoint or your really meaning what you've said in your posts. Yousaid youwouldn't have a blind lawyer and now a blind doctor either.Please explain.
If someone is qualified to do their job then it's simply not fairto say youwouldn't allow them to do their job for you based on the factthey areblind.
Thanks,
Rick
-- Visit my webpage and podcast feed at: http://www.blind-geek-zone.net and my web Blog at: http://blind-geek-zone.blogspot.com/ Join the BGZ mailing list by sending a blank email message to: blind_geek_zone-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and put subscribe in the subject line.
Contact info:
Email - rickharmon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx & rharmon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Skype - rharmon928 MSN - rharmon928@xxxxxxxxxxx ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew2007" <matthew2007@xxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 6:52 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
In your own opinion you're good. What objective measures orassessments canyou show for your claims? My point is that you are making thesame mistakeas those who claim blind people can make websites as good assighted people.They are basing their arguments on personal anecdotal experience.I'm sorrybut if I walked into a medical center and discovered that theperson helpingmy elderly parent learn to control her Parkinson's relatedmovement disorderis a blind person, I'm going somewhere else. I want someone whowill be ableto make an educated comprehensive assessment based on their ownassessmentof the situation and not have to go through someone else toconvey to themthe patient's physical movements.
Matthew ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dale Leavens" <dleavens@xxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
This entire thread is ridiculous. Loads of sighted people can'tdesign adecent Web site. Just when did it become necessary for each andevery blindperson to perform above the standard of the best sighted designeroranything else for that matter. That is a pretty high standardand just belowGod.
Loads of blind programmers and Web authors can out design and outcode manythousands maybe millions of Web pages out there. Why isn't thatenough? Ifone excels for any reason at any level let us celebrate that.
I am a Physiotherapist. I am darn good at rehabilitatingacquired braininjuries, I suck at respiratory conditions and don't much care.This doesnot negate my value. Admittedly I haven't won any awards either.
Congratulations and thank you to the extent I, as a blind personcan benefitfrom any reflected glory.
Now can we possibly return to the regularly scheduled programme? Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada DLeavens@xxxxxxx Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bearhabitat.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Léonie Watson" <tink@xxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:14 PM Subject: RE: Team Excellence Award Winner
Matthew,
You seem to be suggesting that a VI person can't succeed, or risetoeminence in their field, in a sighted world. I sincerely hopethat you'resuggesting nothing of the kind, but perhaps you'd be good enoughto clarifyyour scepticism?
Regards, Léonie.
-----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf OfMatthew2007Sent: 29 November 2007 16:30 To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
In an effort to take your anecdotal post and bring it to life,name thesepeople. I want to try to find them and research the particularsof theirsituations. After all, there is a nice big picture from 2003 ofthat moronin the white house standing on a freight carrier next to a signstating"victory." We all know what this picture leads us to believe, butthe truthis very different.
Matthew ---- Original Message ----- From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:45 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
*taking a deep breath*, *counting to ten*,
*reciting mantra's to calm my spirit*
teddy, one doesn't become a professional foot ball player in theNFL bybeing better than the worst foot ball player, or by being evenwith theaverage players despite his having only half of his rightfoot...
one does not become a respected and well paid attorney by beingjustbetter than someone who knows nothing about the intricacies ofthe law,nor a professional class skier by being equal to sighted averageskiers,despite the fact that the gentleman is both blind and a doubleamputee...
one does not earn the title of fencing master, even sighted, byonlyfencing with those who are average with a foil, or by fencingonly withthose who are blind, even if one is blind themselves..
these are the types of people I am talking about, they aremasters ofthere fields, despite there disadvantages, not over those whodon't orhaven't learned how, I'm talking about people with distinctdisadvantagesthat makes there choice of work seem ridiculous to many, andforce theworld to recognize that if one wishes to, and is willing to dowhat isrequired to accomplish it, that they can be a top gun in therefield, nomatter what...
quit with the f... reeking you can't, because if one of uswishes to putforth the effort, and the time, we can, period end of quote!
inthane . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, UsefulPrograms, andLinks to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications,visit meat: http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com . to be able to view a simple programming project in severalprogramminglanguages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at: http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:06 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Oh yes that could be true. There are sighted persons that don'teven know
how to use a computer. So we can say that we as web designersare betterat web design than them. But who cares that we can be betterthan thosesighted that don't know too many things? We should be better comparing us with the medium-skilled sightedwebdesigner.... at least. But unfortunately a medium-skilled web designer might know tocreateimages, maybe a little Flash, some Javascript, and nobody willcare thathe doesn't put a document type declaration at the top of his webpages,or that his pages won't be W3C compliant.
If you will check the Google's web page with the W3C's htmlvalidator, it
will tell you:
Failed validation, 30 Errors
So... of course W3C's validator is not important at all,because Google's
page is very accessible, very simple, and with a design....better saidalmost without any design.
Octavian
----- Original Message ----- From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:40 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
teddy that is far from what I meant, my computer locked up on my previous reply, so I'll take my time since I seem to have ahabit ofoverloading my machine, and I'll get back on this later, if Idon'tdecide it doesn't warrant a reply when I cool down..
I can tell you about a number of "handicapped" people that havemastered
areas that are thought of as "sighted and fit" only areas aswell orbetter than most of there "whole and healthy" fellow humans
laters, inthane . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, UsefulPrograms, 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 severalprogramming
languages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at: http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:32 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Oh yes, that's true, and sometimes the screen reader doesn'teven showus the correct colors, and even if it show us that 2 words comeoneafter another in the same line, it doesn't tell us that maybethe first
is a static word in a iframe element and the other one is a text written dynamicly by a javascript code, and it might scrollslowly upor down becoming 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 indifferentsports, 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 wewould beable 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 Winner
which except for rare occasions is not practical Marlon, sincewe live
in a sighted world, and the majority of folks that we are goingtoneed to deal with are sighted, I'm sorry that you have noexperiencein the visual view of things, this is one area where I have an advantage.
but... you can't avoid the visual world, it's out there, it'sthemajority, 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, keep yourself at the top of the page, and turn on the invisiblecursor andgo up and down the page to see what it actually looks like, suchas,the that that instead of the vertical column that jaws presentsuswith, that its actually more like a message written in Braille, including the navigation links which run from left to rightacross the
page, not in the vertical column that is presented to us.
take care, and good luck, inthane . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, UsefulPrograms, andLinks to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications,visit
me 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 Winner
Hello folks, Well I have never seen ... so I have no a ... let's call it...visual standards so, although I can technically do it very well ... Icannot plan, like imagine, build ... a nice visual interface, becauseIdon't know 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 screen readers use to present web content, I have dificulties to imagine hwat exactly sighted people expect to see in a webpage or something likethis.I can plan the components of the interface, but deciding * and putting * them in the more "apropriate" place or planning what wouldhappenif one 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...now the 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, ifyouall will 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 wona
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 andthe
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
__________ 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
__________ 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
__________ 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
__________ 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