[HN Gopher] Interview with a blind developer on how he works (2017)
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Interview with a blind developer on how he works (2017)
Author : agomez314
Score : 163 points
Date : 2024-04-04 10:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vincit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vincit.com)
| lioeters wrote:
| Related:
|
| How A Blind Developer Uses Visual Studio (2017) -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347908
| hinkley wrote:
| Unfortunately that video is gone. Is that the one where he was
| using sped up audio cues to analyze code?
| lioeters wrote:
| That's odd, the YouTube URL still works for me. Here's
| another link to the same video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKISPePFrIs
|
| I think it's the same one you mean, his screen reader's audio
| is so fast it sounds like electronic blips.
| somethingsright wrote:
| "The answer of course is Visual Studio", pun intended.
| hinkley wrote:
| If he can perceive bright light I wonder if he can detect color?
|
| Because I'm mostly normally sighted I use audio cues for
| extremely low bandwidth data, like chat or build status. I wonder
| if someone with a text to speech tool would be better off getting
| visual cues for low bandwidth data. For example one or more color
| panels on the wall in front of you to indicate chat status or
| unread email or failed builds. Four pixels in three colors can
| encode a lot of status.
| jareds wrote:
| I refer to my vision as "no useful vision" I can see enough
| light to sometimes tell if the lights are left on in a room or
| if the son is out. I can not see color, it's either bright,
| neutral, or dark.
| Nashooo wrote:
| That's interestingly exactly the case for me if I close my
| eyes. Through the eyelids I can tell dark, neutral and
| bright.
| hinkley wrote:
| At best I can tell the direction of a light source with my
| eyes closed. That still seems like it could encode four
| states. But the light intensity might make my skin
| uncomfortable. Better perhaps to use tactile.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I wonder if there's a disability friendly version of the famous
| Apple Pascal poster
| pants2 wrote:
| I wonder how much multimodal LLMs are changing the game for blind
| developers. I imagine if used the right way it could be a huge
| productivity booster.
| jareds wrote:
| Why do you think this? I'm totally blind and find Chat GPT to
| be useful for quick answers to questions instead of searching
| through SEO spam and low quality tutorials. I find Copilot to
| be sueful for better code completion and helping to write basic
| unit tests. I don't find that it can actually write complex
| code for me. I very well may be using the tools wrong though.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| Multimodal LLMs can take images and describe them as text,
| which I imagine could be useful in some cases, for the vision
| impaired.
| RobMurray wrote:
| It can be useful, although the usual caveats with LLMs
| apply. for example I can get a description of the contents
| of a window or control with one keystroke. Here is what it
| says about this HN page:
|
| The image shows a screenshot of a text-based discussion on
| an online forum. The discussion involves several users
| exchanging thoughts on various topics related to
| accessibility for visually impaired individuals, multimodal
| language models (LLMs), and coding. It features typical
| forum elements like usernames, timestamps, and reply links.
|
| [... summary of the comments]
|
| The color scheme is predominantly white with text in black,
| usernames in blue, and links in light blue, creating a
| contrast that's commonly seen in web-based forums.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Not much, though I use GPT Vision (through a Mac app[1])
| occasionally, especially for screenshots and sometimes plots.
|
| [1] https://github.com/chigkim/VOCR
| decide1000 wrote:
| That's a nice post to read. Thanks for sharing.
| jareds wrote:
| Microsoft has done a lot of good work with VSCode for blind
| developers. I'm totally blind and used Eclipse for many years. I
| started using VSCode when I was learning Go. I watched audio
| queue's be added and thought it was a thing I'd never use because
| I am set in my ways. Now that I'm using VSCode to do Go
| programming professionally I'm glad they exist. It's not a game
| change but it is a nice quality of life improvement.
| miki123211 wrote:
| I definitely second the VS Code recommendation. I'm doing a lot
| of work with Jupyter these days, and Jupyter's accessibility
| really sucks. The VS Code Jupyter plugin is just as good as the
| rest of the app.
|
| I'm also a fan of the IndentNav[1] addon. It essentially allows
| you to navigate code like a tree, using indentation levels for
| hierarchy. This is very useful to skip over functions or blocks
| of code you're not currently interested in, get a quick
| overview of what a large function is doing without getting into
| the nitty-gritty details, or quickly figure out what if
| statement an "else" belongs to.
|
| [1]
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TonyMaly...
| sebtron wrote:
| Interesting. I thought blind developers would be working 100% on
| a UNIX command line, using tools like ed for text editing (no GUI
| or TUI).
|
| Related: "Command Line Programs for the Blind", by Karl Dahlke
| [1]
|
| [1] http://www.eklhad.net/philosophy.html
| robin_reala wrote:
| Those don't expose semantics and state in the same way that
| well coded GUIs do.
| jareds wrote:
| This may have been a better option in the early 90's when GUI
| screen readers were not as good. I did z/OS Assembly
| programming for several years using ISPF as a text editor and
| submitting jobs to compile my code. I"ll gladly take an IDE
| with features from 1995 like renaming variables, moving to the
| next error, and jumping to a function definition.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| If you don't mind me asking, what kind of Mainframe stuff
| were you working on where writing assembly was the best way
| to go about it?
| miki123211 wrote:
| I actually tried using Ed and didn't like it very much. My main
| gripe with it is that you strictly have to operate on a line-
| by-line basis, there's no way to go word-by-word, do
| option+backspace to erase the word that you just went past and
| then replace it with something else. Sure, there's the s
| command, but then turning "Eric" into "Daniel" also turns
| "American" into "Amdanielan", and you have to be extra careful
| around that sort of thing.
| RobMurray wrote:
| I would hate to have to do any editing in ed. Just reading a
| file line by line would be painful.
|
| GUI programs are actually often easier for blind people in the
| same way they are for everyone else as long as they have good
| keyboard navigation and use a toolkit with good accessibility
| support.
|
| I currently mainly use VSCode for development; they are putting
| a lot of effort into accessibility.
| commenter48445 wrote:
| Link where you can hear the audio samples:
| https://boingboing.net/2017/08/28/this-blind-software-develo...
| epr wrote:
| Wow, the fact that he can understand what's being said at that
| speed is incredible. His brain must've repurposed most of those
| visual processing neurons for audio.
| Pathogen-David wrote:
| It looks like the audio samples have disappeared since 2017, but
| they're available on the Wayback Machine for those who want to
| listen:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170831162900/https://www.vinci...
| IndrekR wrote:
| Previous coverage from 2019 where the author commented as well:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21898537
|
| Related topic from 2020 (Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going
| blind, how should I prepare?):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22918980
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Blind software development at 450 words per minute (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21898537 - Dec 2019 (53
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: I 'm a software engineer going blind, how should I
| prepare?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22918980 -
| April 2020 (473 comments)
| spr-alex wrote:
| I once worked with a blind malware analyst. I was skeptical
| because of the working memory requirements for reverse
| engineering being hard in general... until we worked together and
| his screen reader gave him hex and assembly. He was beyond fast
| at reversing and generally excellent at his job.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Blind person here, do you remember what tools they used by any
| chance?
|
| I find modern IDA pro to be pretty inaccessible, same with
| Ghidra (though I only tried that one on Mac, and the Windows
| version is apparently somewhat better).
| kgp7 wrote:
| I work with an engineer who is visually challenged and uses emacs
| with dictation to code. He is a pretty phenomenal engineer.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| This makes me realize it must suck to be a mediocre blind
| developer.
|
| The average person is just average. Unless there is something
| about visual impairment that makes them better at development,
| then I would expect them to be on average, just average
| developers.
|
| Yet I would guess that visually impaired developers get more
| scrutiny. If nothing else, just because they are a novelty.
|
| Anyhow, I guess I am just reminding myself to treat each person
| as an individual.
| jesterswilde wrote:
| I feel I'm a mediocre blind developer and it does suck,
| mostly just the blind part though. I do my best not to let my
| coworkers know I'm blind (I work remotely.) Mostly to avoid
| either 'cripple porn' or being disregarded. Either way, it's
| easier.
| Terr_ wrote:
| To me, this brings up all sorts of anxieties around how I could
| possibly function (professionally) if I lost my eyesight... and
| what I would practice in advance if I have reason to expect
| problems.
| denvaar wrote:
| I'm surprised at the number of commenters here that are blind, or
| commenters who work with someone who is blind. Maybe this is more
| common than I thought, and that's awesome. Goes to show that we
| should try to make accessibility more than just an afterthought.
| mywacaday wrote:
| 10,000% respect for anyone able to develop or work productivility
| and being blind. I lost the use of my dominant right for a few
| months three years ago, so difficult to adapt even for a few
| months. Respect!
| colund wrote:
| Very interesting article and it was interesting to see his desk
| without a display and mouse.
|
| I posted a long and very moving story the other day about a
| software developer who was getting blind on an eye in six hours.
| https://elye-project.medium.com/i-became-blind-within-6-hour...
|
| It made me think about how much time we spend in front of screens
| these days and that eyesight can't be taken for granted.
|
| This article was a nice contrast describing the possibilities to
| do work as a blind developer.
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