[program-l] Programmer's Editor for OSX
- From: Kerneels Roos <kerneels@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:24:20 +0200
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
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