RE: Your Experience with Braille Displays
- From: "Joseph Lee" <joseph.lee22590@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:29:32 -0700
Hi,
In my opinion and experiences, I usually use my braille display for
proofreading my code. Since I work with C++, I need to proofread often,
especially to check syntax and to make sure I put matching braces at the
beginning and at the end of a code block.
As for screen readers and braille displays, I'd say it's really up to a
person to try it out. I've done this combination (JAWS 10 with a BrailleNote
Apex) several times, and from what I've seen, both works well, especially
with both speech and braille to really make sure that what I type and hear
is what will appear on a computer screen and on a braille line.
Also, there are different braille languages and codes availible. There are
contracted braille code and uncontracted ones out there. The one that you
might use often with a computer is logically called "computer braille,"
which assigns unique braille dot combinations for each of the ASCII values
out there on a QWERTY keyboard. There are a total of 64 different
combinations (63 plus a blank). if uppercase and special characters are
included, we get about 255 different combinations - which is a lot...
As for device and model, I personally use BrailleNote Apex BT32 for this
task. There is another guy here who uses the same model as me to write code
(mostly in java and Python). You might want to research a little bit to find
out which model works best and with your screen reader (which one are you
using), as well s connection methods (most of them supports USB while others
support Bluetooth). The models I heard works well with screen readers would
be PAC Mate portable series, BrailleNote, Alva, Focus series, Braille Star
and others.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Joseph
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels Roos
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:15 AM
To: programmingblind
Subject: Your Experience with Braille Displays
Hi everyone,
In a recent conversation with a fellow member of this list, I got a strong
impression that, with the aid of a Braille display one would be able to be a
lot more productive when coding, especially if the display is sufficiently
large (80 cells for example).
I myself have never used a Braille display and have been learning Braille
for the last year and a half with reasonable success. As a programmer who
has been in the industry for about 10 years now I can totally understand how
a Braille display could assist you, especially with those long lines of
object upon object ending in some deep down function call. Or some of those
heavily nested conditional C-style expressions:
result = (condition1 || condition2) && condition3 ? value1 : (condition4 ?
value4 : value5)
or something similar and more complex -- the above one is quite trivial :-).
But how have you experienced programming with a Braille display at your
service?
Has there been any particular model / make / design which you can recommend
above others?
Are there any models you absolutely could not get along with, or which were
unreliable and broke all the time?
And how about screen reader compattibility? In your opinion, does screen
reader X stand out at working the best with a Braille display while screen
reader Y failed you dismally.
And lastly, has there been any particular language you absolutely could not
get any joy with while trying to read code with a Braille display?
Many questions, I know, but feel free to respond with anything you feel
strongly about regarding this topic.
Eager to hear your responses,
K
--
Kerneels Roos
Cell/SMS: +27 (0)82 309 1998
Skype: cornelis.roos
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