I will w warning you that the windows arm is not great for developers yet. You
will run into all kinds of weird problems. I know this from sighted engineers
working on a hard ware problem that need to use different types of development
environments. I look at Windows ARM as first release. Sort of like old XP
service pack 1. It wasn't great till service pack 3. No rush to get to arm
windows.
-----Original Message-----
From: program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf
Of rober555x@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2022 12:19 PM
To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [program-l] Re: Windows vs mac for developers, what do you prefer?
Hi David. If you are interested in taking advantage of the newer macs, it is
possible to virtualize Windows using Parallels so that you have the best of
both worlds. You will be using Windows in ARM but X86 emulation works
surprisingly well. NVDA also works very well with Windows in ARM.
-----Original Message-----
From: program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf
Of David CM
Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2022 3:35 AM
To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [program-l] Re: Windows vs mac for developers, what do you prefer?
Hello, thank you very much for your message, it is very informative.
I use the linux console for very specific tasks. Manage gits, perform tasks on
a server, Dockers, etc.
I don't think I could adapt to using VIM, although I'm curious to know how
certain things can be done:
Navigation by code errors, navigation by hierarchy of structures such as
modules, classes and methods, breakpoints, the debugger, etc. I'm of the
philosophy that the fewer keys or steps for an action, the better.
The audible indentation indicator is a must have for me. That's why I don't use
JAWS, the last time I tried it at least, it didn't have that feature.
I always use the indentation indicator, because is important to know it when
I'm working on a development team.
On Windows, I use NVDA 100%. I don't have JAWS installed, actually. I can do
any task, but for some very tedious applications I have to use the object
navigation.
I've been developing projects in Windows for about 14 years, although many
times I've had to run them in linux environments. Fortunately there is a lot of
facility to run Linux environments virtually.
The idea of using a mac has been more like trying something new, and because of
the advantages offered by Mac laptops with the new generation of processors.
Again, I think an important factor to consider is usability. For example,
before using VS Code I was an Eclipse user. I clicked with VS Code very easily.
It is not usual for this to happen with the ides, it was more difficult for me
to adapt to Android Studio.
I know that Mac is accessible for developing applications, but I don't know if
it is usable at the level that Windows is with some ides or editors.
Regards,
David CM.
2022-12-24 1:51 GMT-06:00, Mohamed Fayed <m10fayed@xxxxxxxxx>:
Hi,** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
Hope my mail finds you well,
Regarding windows vs Mac, it depends on what tasks you want to do. For
Music production, Mac is a better option as per reviews I hear across
the internet.
------------
For coding, personally, I do not agree with people voting against Mac
OS that it is not suitable for developers. Actually, it is the best as
long as you want to work the unix way.
For me, I use terminal (or command line) for everything I want to do
except for browsing the internet.
Terminal has always been accessible and works pretty well with
VoiceOver on all Mac OS versions since 10.12 except for Mac OS 12.
I actually find myself do not need to ask about any GUI applications
while using terminal. There are a terminal way of doing thing 99.99% of time.
You want text editor? Vim is the solution regardless of your
programming language. You can think of vim as text editor similar to
VS code, but with no GUI. Just text interface. It is accessible by
default and does not need another TTS engine like emacs.
Regarding knowing the indentation, I heard that it has been added to
VoiceOver in Mac OS 13 Ventura, but unfortunately, I have only Mac OS
12 since my device is relatively old. I have 2016 15” MacBook Pro.
But, I find myself working pretty well with python and yaml files
without getting much feedback of the indentation. I know how my vim
plugins work and when they insert indentation and when they don’t.
There is no doubt that I face sometimes python tracebacks because of
indentation, but they are not so frequent that they force me to
consider indentation feedback absence as a bad thing.
You can find a lot of tutorials about using vim for x programming language.
So, it is universally usable as VS code.
VS Code vs Vim is somewhat like windows vs Mac discussions. Each of
them has its own users and lovers.
The only pitfall for Mac in my opinion is that not all applications
made specifically for blind are there, e.g. InftyReader and Kurzweil
1000. You can overcome it for Intel-based Macs since they can run
Windows x86 applications normally. On Apple Silicon, I am not sure
whether there is a way to run Windows x86 version using virtualization
or not. Theoretically, it is possible, but not sure whether someone
has done a tutorial on doing it. I haven’t done enough search.
If you will use the terminal for everyday tasks, you should think of
the Unix vs DOS command line discussion, which usually ends up till
today with Unix based operating systems as winners. Windows is trying
to catch up and there is much progress, but it is not there yet.
If you consider linux, you can think of Mac as a linux with better GUI
and better functionalities. The differences are not noticeable in
everyday tasks except in screen reader user experience.
If you are ready to use accessible terminal interface for most
everyday tasks, then Mac would be the best option. If you want to use
GUI applications and do not want to search for alternative methods of
handling your tasks when working with colleagues who uses Windows,
then windows is the way to go.
------------
Another thing to keep in mind is the OS your colleagues use. If you
have an old Mac user, they would be of a great support to you. If they
are powerful windows users, then they can help you better searching
for alternative more accessible tools.
------------
For dealing with microcontrollers, you can find more tools and IDEs on
windows compared to Mac. On Mac, you may need to do it in a relatively
old basic way. In other words, you may have to go deep till commands
controlling the hardware, e.g. write sequence of bytes to disk, use
serialization protocol to send the file to microcontroller via
interface, …etc. On windows tools, you may find a button for burning program
to it.
If you will end up using command line on windows, usually you can find
similar methods on Mac and Linux.
Generally, support for microcontrollers software is more common on
windows than Mac or linux.
------------
For Screen readers
Regarding modifying Voiceover screen reader on Mac, it is less open
compared to NVDA and JAUS.
You can add more functionalities using keyboard commanders, but you
can’t modify the way the core of VoiceOver works. You can make an
Apple Script that reports battery status and add a keyboard commander
so that Voiceover reports battery level when pressing right option key+b, for
instance.
The tasks you can do using commanders are limited to what Apple Script
programming language and Apple Automator software can provide you and
your imagination. As long as you can code it, you can add it to
VoiceOver via keyboard commander.
If we take the case of indentation reporting, you may make a script
that takes current line read by VoiceOver, check the indentation
level, then report it. Finally, assign that script to option+I
keyboard commander, for instance.
——————
Yes, eSpeak Ng is available on Mac App Store as well, since Mac OS 13
(the latest version).
------------
A thing you should always keep in your mind when you want to start a
new job or a new semester in faculty and when dealing a set of new
tools is that learning to use these tools is not an easy task since it
can always expand to searching for a new set of alternative tools to
be accessible with your screen reader.
Not NVDA is suitable for all tasks on windows and not JAUS is suitable
for all tasks. Usually you need a combination of all of them to do some
things.
Learning these new tools is time consuming, so do not expect to be
productive and useful to your employer before understanding these
tools properly to handle most common tasks.
------------
I hope this email helps you in making educated decision for yourself
and your case. It is totally normal that people do not agree on a
specific way of doing things, but you should find the best method for you.
Regards,
Mohamed E. Fayed
