Hello,
At Jana, you are definitely not the first person to consider a central
resource like you are proposing. It is actually something that I have wanted
for years. This idea for me is driven by my experience learning how to
program as a blind individual, however I have several friends who want a
similar resource for other things. For example, math or sciences. As a blind
individual, we always have to reinvent the wheel, unless you know the right
person, or stumble upon your answer on the internet. The issue is that
google searches for most of the problems we have do not pull up these
mailing lists. We have great conversations here which could help a lot of
people, but Google rarely throws back emails from any of the blind
programming mailing lists. If you are lucky, you can find your way to a
mailing list like this one, but even then I see a lot of the same questions
asked over and over. Not sure about anyone else, but I am terrible about
searching the mailing list archives first before posting, and for the
noobies, that will definitely not be their first instinct. WE just need more
visibility for our conversations, and preferably a central location for a
lot of the common questions. I find the audiogames.net developers room pops
up in google searches far more than any mailing list archive.
This is actually an idea that was proposed by someone in the National
Federation for the Blind computer Science mailing list (NFBCS). NFB for
those who are not in America, is a advocacy group for blind individuals in
America. The problem was that politics got drug into the conversation,
people who were hire up the chain in the organization were bulking for a
handful of reasons, and nothing ever came of it. I would kind of prefer that
such a resource is independent of an organization such as NFB, especially
because there are so many blind programmers all over the world who are on
this list who could benefit from such a resource, and I don't want politicks
to get in the way of what we actually need. The hardest part is establishing
a group of individuals who are willing to maintain such a resource, and
making sure that it does not die out several years down the road.
I am absolutely willing to help contribute to such a project, and I think a
zoom call with those on the list who are interested would be a great idea.
As I mentioned above, I think that ideally, we should be thinking beyond
just the problems we have as blind programmers, and consider a larger
community driven resource for other subjects. I am very glad that this topic
got brought up. It is something that I was planning to bring up once I was
settled in my new job and could speak from a place of industry experience.
In terms of what you can do now Jana, I agree with using Ed Sharp. I learned
how to program in college in python and java using ED Sharp and the command
prompt. I 110 percent agree with the individual who said that you are
undertaking a massive challenge by trying to learn a full blown development
environment while at the same time learning the language. It is so
difficult, and I would never start a visually impaired individual first
learning programming in a IDE like Visual Studio or Eclipse. You should only
focus on learning the language first, and once you have a good grasp on the
language, you can look at learning some of the tools that make development
much easier. Although things like auto completion, debuggers, code
generators, etc... sound great, to learn how to use those tools as a screen
reader user is very difficult. It often requires memorizing a giant list of
shortcut keys before you are actually efficient at using these tools.
Timothy Breitenfeldt
-----Original Message-----
From: program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Ben Humphreys
Sent: Monday, March 8, 2021 6:00 PM
To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [program-l] Re: Potential Resource for Blind Coders and Students
Hi Jana,
If I recall correctly, you were the new blind developer in a Visual Studio
class of sighted peers.
I had been meaning to acknowledge the difficulty inherent in what you are
attempting to do, namely learn a screen reader, a programming language, a
highly complex Integrated Development Environment, all while your peers are
clicking and following along, and you're trying to overcome all the normal
obstacles plus all the accessibility obstacles and figure out alternative
methods in real-time.
That's a hell of a lot to ask, even from a genius student :)
I read somewhere once that those of us who have been through hardships tend
to actually be less empathetic to those going through similar challenges,
because we selectively forget just how hard it was during the midst of our
own struggles.
I've had the benefit of attending programming classes at Freedom Scientific
(for JAWS scripting) and the experience was just awesome, because the
instructor and all the students were on a level playing field, so my poor
brain wasn't required to be in overdrive the whole time, it was actually fun
to be amongst similarly talented non-sighted peers.
So I just wanted to reassure you that if you're having difficulty, it's
because you're trying to do 3x or 4x what the other students are trying to
do.
Occasionally, you'll find courses taught by and for visually impaired, such
as SiscoVision, or more recently SalesForce, or the JAWS on-site scripting
class I took. These are wonderful confidence boosters because you're
validated and don't feel like an outsider. But of course, these kinds of
courses are few and far between.
Joseph had mentioned "Where is Jamal" in his post and I completely concur.
Jamal Mazrui was one of my biggest sources of inspiration when learning to
code without eyesight. His website is still up at
http://www.empowermentzone.com/
Using his edsharp editor remains a joy because it is 100% accessible and the
help via F1 key is a super well structured document with narrative and
associated keystrokes. What's more, the source code for edsharp is a single
c# file which is an excellent learning tool in its own right. One of the
neatest things about edsharp is that there's a compile batch file included
with it that bypasses all the hidden complexity of what Visual Studio does
behind the scenes. And so you realize that it doesn't have to be as voodoo
complex as Visual Studio leads you to believe.
Lastly, I too have been thinking on the topic of something similar to
applevis.com but for programming or development or business software in
general. All the tips and tricks you learn; all the "recipies"
you build to get through the day. Things like how to operate QuickBooks,
Google Ads, Slack, et all. While geared to the VI entrpreneurial crowd,
bizability is perhaps a more currently maintained resource than Jamal's
site. Find out more at:
https://bizability.org/
I sincerely wish you all the best with your Visual Studio class, but if you
get overwhelmed, you might consider building your own self-study course by
taking something like edsharp.cs and working through it, with the help of
other talented folks on this list like Soronel Haetir
<soronel.haetir@xxxxxxxxx>
Very best wishes,
Ben
At 07:04 PM 3/8/2021, you wrote:
Hello,
I joined this list a month or two ago because I was enrolled in a
12-week computer coding boot camp after being laid off from my non-tech
job of 16 years. I have found the people on this list to be extremely
responsive and encouraging. Most recently, I have been following with
interest the thread about coding after losing one's sight. Although I
have always been blind, some of the advice has been relevant to me as
well.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to get a good enough grade at the
end of the first of three modules in the boot camp program to progress
further. The academy I attend is very supportive, but they have not had
a blind student before. They are willing to give me another chance, but
before that, we are looking to try to figure out some different things
to do next time so I can be successful. I may come back to that topic
in a future post.
For now, I want to float an idea out to this group that could benefit
not only me but other blind coders, current and future. My impression
from this list is that most blind coders have more or less figured
things out on their own with, if they are lucky, some support from a
group like this list. Those who have made a career in coding are busy
and probably do not have time to do much more than you are already
doing. The information is really valuable but not particularly
well-organized so that other blind coders can find information they
need wen they need it. For example, I often see messages about tools or
languages that I know nothing about so this information doesn't make an
impression with me. If, later, I take up Python or want to get
Salesforce certification I might not even remember that those topics
came up on this list in March 2021.
The other big problem that adds to what a blind coder needs to learn
are, as several people mentioned, all of the commands and keyboard
shortcuts one needs to master in order to be efficient.
I have been thinking about two possible projects to help address the
needs of blind coders and blind people who want to learn to code.
I would be interested in creating a website similar to Applevis where
info could be posted about IDE's and other coding tools that would be
categorized and given ratings regarding how accessible they are. With
permission of the posters, I would also take useful information shared
on this list and in other venues for blind coders so they could be
found by search engines and organized.
The big idea, which would obviously take a long time to implement, is
to create trainings or an actual online coding boot camp especially for
blind people. The nonprofit academy I am attending was founded by a
person who is a well-connected tech entrepreneur Aside from the
classes, they also have connections with lots of people in the field
and companies, and they help students find jobs or additional training.
I am writing to this list to request feedback regarding both of
these ideas. Are they good ideas? Has someone already done either or
both of these things or is someone or an organization working on
ideas like these? Do you think one or both of these are bad ideas
and why? Do you think you would have taken part in a training
program specifically for blind coders if it had been available or do
you think the current approach works well given all the different
operating systems, screen readers, computer languages, etc.? Would a
pre-course focusing on learning specific skills blind coders need
such as working in VS Code with a screen reader be a good idea or is
it impossible to teach people to use the tools separate from
teaching them to code (I kind of think the latter is true but want
to hear varied perspectives)? Would you be interested in helping
with one or both of these projects? What skills could you contribute?
I have been thinking that working on these projects and documenting
my own journey as I learn to code (rather than trying later to
remember what it was like) would be a great motivator for me because
my previous career involved working with college students. At the
same time, I might find that I am unable to work on this while I am
also a student. In other words, this is still very much at the idea
stage. However, I don't want to go farther without getting input
from people with experience. Any and all feedback is truly welcome.
Best,
Jana
