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Ask HN: Programming Languages for Dyslexics
One of my colleagues was ranting about Python. His dyslexia makes it hard for him to read any whitespace based languages.
What languages - if any - have been designed for readability for dyslexic programmers?
Or, should he just adjust the colours and fonts in his IDE?
(Not all dyslexics are the same, obviously)
- w_t_payne 14y agoMatlab, Octave or Julia
- samwillis 14y agoIm dyslexic and love Python but as you say not all dyslexics are the same. I would dry out different colour schemes, I font they make a massive difference. I find it interesting that he describes the white space being an issue. I think my dyslexia makes me a more 'visual' learner, I need to see something in front of me to absorb it and things with a solid pattern and structure help. I think Python follows those sensibilities. I could undersand that maybe something with a C style syntax using braces may provide a 'better' indication of the blocks but my feeling is that the indentation is a better way of visually showing the blocks of code. Could you ask him what it is about the white space that he finds hard? Some dyslexics when reading see the words moving around in front of them and use a ruler to follow a line, most editors have a way of setting the background of the line where the cursor is in a different colour. That may help?
- dholowiski 14y agoI'm not sure if I'm dyslexic but I use the Gill Dyslexic font everywhere I can. I also bought mono dyslexic and set up Sublime 2 to use the font. Forced chrome fonts to use Gill Dyslexic. Makes a huge difference (and sorry, but it's way better than the free font that's floating around). Not a language, but it makes whatever I'm working in much easier. http://www.pixelscript.net/gilldyslexic/ http://www.pixelscript.net/gilldyslexic/ (I'm not associated with the creator in any way, just find it extremely useful.)