r/javahelp • u/galaxy_wheelie • Jan 30 '19
Learning java while blind
Hay everyone as the title suggests I am blind and trying to learn java. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience, knolage or perhaps even knows one of the very illusive blind devs. If so I would realy appreciate any help you could offer.
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u/kostamba Jan 30 '19
Hi! I think you are strong man. You can became java codder. Read this article https://blog.momocentral.com/the-day-we-hired-a-blind-coder-9c9d704bb08b it is about blind developer
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u/calmonad Jan 30 '19
Sorry this isn't Java, but I recall watching a talk of how a blind developer used Visual Studio with screen reader narration. It was quite interesting and I applaud you for seeking the challenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc
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u/the-big-tuna Jan 30 '19
Was literally going to link this myself. He explains to the non-blind how he does it, so it could very well be applied in the reverse.
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u/larsonthekidrs Jan 30 '19
Ok. I just have one question, are you partially blind or completely blind. This will change my next response.
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u/galaxy_wheelie Jan 30 '19
I have a little bit of sight but it is non functional aka useless
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u/larsonthekidrs Jan 30 '19
Alright, then. Use eclipse as your ide. It has auto class and method completion. Then memorize how Java creates classes and methods. Do that first. If you don't mind asking how do you see your program?
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u/galaxy_wheelie Jan 30 '19
I use a free screen reader called nvda
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u/larsonthekidrs Jan 30 '19
Oh perfect. Then do those steps listed above.
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u/galaxy_wheelie Jan 30 '19
Alright will do thank you very much
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u/2HornsUp Jan 30 '19
Good luck. I hope to see some progress from you in the coming months. If you need some help with anything just shoot me a message.
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u/galaxy_wheelie Jan 30 '19
I will do I'm gona make a YouTube series when I'm done because the current material is lacking
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u/Ariakkas10 Jan 30 '19 edited Jan 30 '19
About a year or more ago I came across a guy who did a study on blind developers and their IDE's. The results are obvious, but I'll post the abstract.
Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) play an important role in the workflow of many software developers, e.g. providing syntactic highlighting or other navigation aids to support the creation of lengthy codebases. Unfortunately, such complex visual information is difficult to convey with current screen-reader technologies, thereby creating barriers for programmers who are blind, who are nevertheless using IDEs. To better understand their usage strategies and challenges, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the issue of code navigation by developers who are blind. We observed 28 blind programmers using their preferred coding tool while they performed various programming activities, in particular while they navigated through complex codebases. Participants encountered many navigation difficulties when using their preferred coding software with assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers). During interviews, participants reported dissatisfaction with the accessibility of most IDEs due to the heavy use of visual abstractions. To compensate, participants used multiple input methods and workarounds to navigate through code comfortably and reduce complexity, but these approaches often reduced their speed and introduced mistakes, thereby reducing their efficiency as programmers. Our findings suggest an opportunity for researchers and the software industry to improve the accessibility and usability of code navigation for blind developers in IDEs.
Albusays, Khaled & Ludi, Stephanie & Huenerfauth, Matt. (2017). Interviews and Observation of Blind Software Developers at Work to Understand Code Navigation Challenges. 91-100. 10.1145/3132525.3132550.
Published in ACM SIGACCESS 2017
Matt Heunerfauth runs a research lab dealing with these types of things . It's called CAIR. Communication Access and Inclusion Research. You might reach out to them and see if they have any resources. Here's a link to their contact page.
in 2018, Khaled Albusays got this paper published..
The goal of my research is to support the workflow of programmers who are blind; prior work has found that these users face challenges in using screen-readers to locate errors and debug software code. Recent advancements in auditory cues have made them a potential candidate for providing useful feedback to both sighted and visually impaired users, but little known about the effectiveness and the usability of such cues for blind programmers. I propose to investigate the efficiency of two different auditory techniques, to locate code errors and reduce the amount of time required to navigate through lengthy codebases. I will compare learning rates for Earcons (hierarchical representations of musical tones) and Spearcons (compressed speech) as potential candidates for the auditory feedback system. My research aim is to understand the proper way to implement usable auditory cues for these users. This document describes my research motivations, proposed research plan, current progress, and the potential contribution to the field of software engineering and accessibility for blind programmers.
ResearchGate has some more of his abstracts listed. I don't know how to get the papers though. I recommend reaching out to CAIR(Khalid is listed on their people page).
Good luck!
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u/ApostleO Jan 30 '19
There was a blind guy in my graduating class at university. I wish I had his contact info; I'd send him a link to this post.
Bottom line: you can do it.
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u/feral_claire Software Dev Jan 30 '19
I've heard of accessable Scala a project to provide metadata to screen readers for Scala code. There's a good chance something similar exists for Java but unfortunately I don't know of it.
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u/hugthemachines Jan 30 '19
I saw a video a while back about a guy coding with dragon natural speek software. It was python but that would not matter so much I suppose. I just thought I would add this to the ideas so you have some options.
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u/bleki_one Jan 30 '19
https://twitter.com/tuukkao blind developer. He post a lot in Finnish, but you can try to contact with him.
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u/evils_twin Jan 30 '19
Why do blind programmers use Java?
Because they can't C.
Sorry, had to do it. I hope you find what you're looking for.