Hi, not sure if this message went through so I'm sending it again. Apologies if it did go through first time.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Programmer's Editor for OSX Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:24:20 +0200 From: Kerneels Roos <kerneels@xxxxxxxxx> To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx CC: tjpaulding@xxxxxxxxx Hi list. Received this query from a friend. See my comments below and please Cc straight to tjpaulding@xxxxxxxxx in addition to replying to the list itself since I don't think Tim is on this list but it is a relevant question. **** From: "Timothy J. Paulding" <tjpaulding@xxxxxxxxx> Date: 11 October 2012 10:02:52 PM SAST I am working with a blind fella who is a software programmer. He uses a mac and is having a hard time finding a text editor that works with voiceover. There are tons of text editors out there that make programming a bit easier, but none of them really seem to work with voiceover. Is there one, or more, that you use? Do you have any suggestions? ****** Hey Tim. I have not really developed on OSX on a Mac but I do know that the list I'm also sending this email to has a few guys that do. Although not simply a programmer's editor, the SodBeans project, which is a full IDE for primarily the Quorum language is something your guy should definately look into - just Google it. SodBeans is basically the NetBeans IDE from Oracle that has been made self voicing, compatible with VoiceOver, JAWS, NVDA, Orca and standard Windows speech synthesis - so it works on Mac, Windows and Linux. Since it is derived from NetBeans it should in theory be able to support a multitude of modern programming languages, but I do know that the advanced features, such as the audio debugger for example is currently only available for the Quorum programming language. Quorum itself is very interesting since it was developed by professor Andreas Stefic (forgive spelling) and his team by applying a scientific approach to developing a programming language that is accessible to visually impaired programmers in its very syntax and semantics. Their team has put in tremendous work and resources into creating a tool for blind people to learn programming with and to do meaningful work with (Quorum can be used to create libraries that Java can access, and Quorum can use the Java API as far as I understand it). Secondly, since OSX is FreeBSD UNIX under the hood, all the power and tools from that world is available inside a console window. The console tools might or might not work well with VoiceOver but it is definately worth trying the traditional power editors like vim for example. I have not had much success like this with my favorite editor vim, but I was trying things on a very old Mac running OSX 10.5.8 (Leopard). With the latest OSX things might be much better. Then, for the console solution there is the incredible emacspeak, which is emacs editor that gives speech feedback and now also works on OSX - traditionally just worked on Linux. I would say this is the ultimate programmer's editor for blind folks available on UNIX like systems like Linux and OSX. I'm sure people on this list could elaborate on this. I do think that currently, the Windows platform is a bit better suited for blind programmers. Perhaps your guy should look into getting a Windows box also with NVDA and/or JAWS if possible. I've found that one has to use and try everything at your disposal if you have a visual disability. There are no silver bullets, only a long hard road less travelled :) Hope this helps, Kerneels -- Kerneels Roos Cell: +27 (0)79 696 6038 Tel: +27 (0)811 2108 LinkedIn: http://za.linkedin.com/in/kerneels Skype: cornelis.roos
