Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers

  • From: Dave <davidct1209@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 09:29:28 -0700

The lack of employment for the blind isn't exclusive to those who
choose to be developers.  It's a more general problem of inequities in
education, resources, and socialization to which many blind folks
face.

At least from my personal experience, the journey of discovering one's
own path towards an accessible environment whether it be a virtual one
used for development or a physical one to navigate through unfamiliar
geographic regions is valuable in it of itself and is an individual
skill that one needs to learn for him/herself.  If someone's serious
about doing professional development along side sighted colleagues,
you will have to "roll" your own accessibility and often times that
means digging into systems or spending extra time automating tasks.
It's not for everyone :).  In short, that means you need an even
deeper understanding of frameworks, OS's, and general computer science
theory than your average "programmer".


On 4/8/11, Bryan Garaventa <bgaraventa11@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I believe the answer to 'why are there fewer when there is more access to
> knowledge' has to do with an irony actually. In general things are much more
> accessible than they used to be, and there are many more accessible
> distractions available to everyone. Necessity drives innovation after all,
> so if there is less necessity for the general population, less people will
> be compelled to test the bounds of innovation.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Cox" <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 8:20 AM
> Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind
> programmers
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Ken Perry <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I think trying to just teach programming though is counterproductive
>> because the classes in college do that rather well. I guess teaching
>> people
>> to use tools might be a better goal then teaching coding.
>
> Well, you may be right.  With the web, learning just about anything is
> so much easier than when I was a kid.  What remains a mystery to me is
> why we're not seeing blind kids going nuts programming computers.
> Surely they have plenty of access to them in the US.  Is there
> anything that can be done to inspire the new generation of blind kids
> to dive in and learn what's under the hood?  Why do so few seem to
> make it?
>
> Bill
> __________
> 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

Other related posts: