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Not the OP and not blind, but I've worked with a blind programmer before. You move your cursor in the code and it reads you the line. The screen readers can b

Not the OP and not blind, but I've worked with a blind programmer before. You move your cursor in the code and it reads you the line. The screen readers can be adjusted so that the speed of reading is really fast. To someone who is not used to it, it sounds like gibberish. But it's pretty amazing how fast the speech can be. After that, it depends on the editor. My colleague used vi (this is a long time ago -- before there was a vim) and was at least as productive as me. The main thing is that you have to remember the code. I've occasionally tried to set up a workable system so that I could program blind. I have vision problems where I get ocular migraines unless I have my system set up with a huge font and very high contrast anyway, so I often think that it would be nice to program without looking at the screen. However, I have yet to get my system set up in any way that works. Accessibility has a long way to go. Every time I've tried to set things up I wonder how a blind person can possibly get to the point where they can even start. It's so frustrating. Actually if anyone in the know is reading this, I'd appreciate a pointer to the easiest to set up Linux system. I wouldn't mind giving it a try again.

azinman2 9y ago
But how does it sanely pronounce things with abbreviations or even something like: NSDictionary *myCompoundedWord = @{@“key: [NSNumber numberWithInt: 7] }; And know that it’s missing the terminal “ in the string and has an extra space after the ]? Seems very difficult. Would be great if it could understand the language enough to verbalize it at a higher level.
- gh02t 9y ago
  Screenreaders usually break it down into chunks it can pronounce or spell it out character by character, with added cues to indicate punctuation and some other things. It's not as slow as it sounds though, most blind people have their screenreaders set to read at a speed that is totally incomprehensible if you're not used to it. It requires a very good memory to manage something like programming, but blind people get really (almost unbelievably) good at that sort of thing simply because they practice a lot by necessity.
  - terminalcommand 9y ago
    I imagine, if you can comprehend at a very fast speed, it gets easier to keep the line in your head. As you can store and revall the characters from the very short term memory. I don't know if this phenomenon exists, but if I,'ve heard the entire line in for example 0.5 seconds, I think I'll be able to construct a mental image of it and code. Another point is that I imagine it takes your complete focus to listen and comprehend single characters at such speeds, so you will be super-focused on the task when you're writing code. We, as the programmers with sight, can read code without getting anything out of it, if we're not focused.
- mwcampbell 9y ago
  With the punctuation level set to all, the NVDA screen reader for Windows reads your code snippet like this: n s dictionary star my compounded word equals at left brace at left quote key colon [pause] left bracket n s number number with int colon [pause] 7 right brace right bracket semi It's a lot to absorb, but people do program productively this way. For example, the NVDA screen reader is itself developed primarily by blind people.
  - flukus 9y ago
    Interesting, how do blind developers feel about minimalist languages like lisp? On one hand it seems like it would read very well in some circumstances (+ 1 2), but the scoping could be a real pain. Cobol seems like another language that might be well suited to them.
    - mikekchar 9y ago
      Emacspeak[0] is one of the more popular voice oriented IDEs. I have yet to get it working, but I think you can do things like get it to read visual regions and sections between matching parens, etc. Ideally this is what I want to use, but it has resisted my efforts so far. Maybe I'll give it another try this weekend. [0] - http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/ http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/
    - spdionis 9y ago
      "parens parens parens parens parens parens parens some code here parens parens parens"
      - aerique 9y ago
        Ugh, that won't do. I need my: brace bracket paren asterisk some code paren bracket brace semicolon.
      - mwcampbell 9y ago
        The regularity of Lisp's syntax suggests an interesting way to render it in speech, at least for blind people who happen to have a good ear for music. Set the TTS engine to monotone (i.e. no attempt at natural intonation), and increase the pitch for each level of parenthesis nesting. So it would basically be singing the code, going up a note or two for each level of nesting. It would sound weird, but I think it could work for some people, myself included.
u801e 9y ago
> You move your cursor in the code and it reads you the line. That's somewhat similar to how ed works. You choose a line number or range and print those lines to the screen.
- mwcampbell 9y ago
  Since you mentioned ed, I know of a blind programmer who actually likes and uses ed (or did last time I heard from him). In fact, he wrote his own version of ed that also includes a web browser, and called it edbrowse. To be sure, he's in the minority even among blind programmers. But for what it's worth, you can find an article that he wrote about his approach here: http://www.eklhad.net/philosophy.html http://www.eklhad.net/philosophy.html
  - uiri 9y ago
    I am not blind but edbrowse is far and away the best non-GUI web browser I've ever used (better than elinks, lynx, etc). I highly recommend that sighted folk crack open the user manual and give it a try.
  - avhon1 9y ago
    I love edbrowse! I keep a copy handy; it's the only web browser I know of that is distributed as a single statically-linked executable. Great for getting through wifi login portals before installing packages. http://edbrowse.org/ http://edbrowse.org/

azinman2 9y ago

But how does it sanely pronounce things with abbreviations or even something like: NSDictionary *myCompoundedWord = @{@“key: [NSNumber numberWithInt: 7] }; And know that it’s missing the terminal “ in the string and has an extra space after the ]? Seems very difficult. Would be great if it could understand the language enough to verbalize it at a higher level.

gh02t 9y ago
Screenreaders usually break it down into chunks it can pronounce or spell it out character by character, with added cues to indicate punctuation and some other things. It's not as slow as it sounds though, most blind people have their screenreaders set to read at a speed that is totally incomprehensible if you're not used to it. It requires a very good memory to manage something like programming, but blind people get really (almost unbelievably) good at that sort of thing simply because they practice a lot by necessity.
- terminalcommand 9y ago
  I imagine, if you can comprehend at a very fast speed, it gets easier to keep the line in your head. As you can store and revall the characters from the very short term memory. I don't know if this phenomenon exists, but if I,'ve heard the entire line in for example 0.5 seconds, I think I'll be able to construct a mental image of it and code. Another point is that I imagine it takes your complete focus to listen and comprehend single characters at such speeds, so you will be super-focused on the task when you're writing code. We, as the programmers with sight, can read code without getting anything out of it, if we're not focused.
mwcampbell 9y ago
With the punctuation level set to all, the NVDA screen reader for Windows reads your code snippet like this: n s dictionary star my compounded word equals at left brace at left quote key colon [pause] left bracket n s number number with int colon [pause] 7 right brace right bracket semi It's a lot to absorb, but people do program productively this way. For example, the NVDA screen reader is itself developed primarily by blind people.
- flukus 9y ago
  Interesting, how do blind developers feel about minimalist languages like lisp? On one hand it seems like it would read very well in some circumstances (+ 1 2), but the scoping could be a real pain. Cobol seems like another language that might be well suited to them.
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    Emacspeak[0] is one of the more popular voice oriented IDEs. I have yet to get it working, but I think you can do things like get it to read visual regions and sections between matching parens, etc. Ideally this is what I want to use, but it has resisted my efforts so far. Maybe I'll give it another try this weekend. [0] - http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/ http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/
  - spdionis 9y ago
    "parens parens parens parens parens parens parens some code here parens parens parens"
    - aerique 9y ago
      Ugh, that won't do. I need my: brace bracket paren asterisk some code paren bracket brace semicolon.
    - mwcampbell 9y ago
      The regularity of Lisp's syntax suggests an interesting way to render it in speech, at least for blind people who happen to have a good ear for music. Set the TTS engine to monotone (i.e. no attempt at natural intonation), and increase the pitch for each level of parenthesis nesting. So it would basically be singing the code, going up a note or two for each level of nesting. It would sound weird, but I think it could work for some people, myself included.

u801e 9y ago

> You move your cursor in the code and it reads you the line. That's somewhat similar to how ed works. You choose a line number or range and print those lines to the screen.

mwcampbell 9y ago
Since you mentioned ed, I know of a blind programmer who actually likes and uses ed (or did last time I heard from him). In fact, he wrote his own version of ed that also includes a web browser, and called it edbrowse. To be sure, he's in the minority even among blind programmers. But for what it's worth, you can find an article that he wrote about his approach here: http://www.eklhad.net/philosophy.html http://www.eklhad.net/philosophy.html
- uiri 9y ago
  I am not blind but edbrowse is far and away the best non-GUI web browser I've ever used (better than elinks, lynx, etc). I highly recommend that sighted folk crack open the user manual and give it a try.
- avhon1 9y ago
  I love edbrowse! I keep a copy handy; it's the only web browser I know of that is distributed as a single statically-linked executable. Great for getting through wifi login portals before installing packages. http://edbrowse.org/ http://edbrowse.org/