[nfbcs] best computer for a CS student?

[Steve Jacobson]

George,

Aaron's response had a great deal of wisdom in it.  I would only add that to get through school as a programmer, it 
will be well worth your time to learn how to work with a human reader.  You are going to have sections of courses 
where the development tools are not accessible, or are accessible but not efficient to use.  In most cases, it 
makes sense to use a human reader rather than letting the lack of screen reader support prevent you from learning.  

JAVA, different than JAVA script, can be made to be accessible with some work, but the programs you write in a JAVA 
class will likely not be accessible.  Rather than spending your time in a class on JAVA learning how to make a 
simple JAVA program accessible, learn to hire and work with a reader to check your output and learn more about 
making JAVA programs accessible when you have either the need or the time.  You may find that a semester course has 
a segment of several weeks that involves processes that are not accessible.  Don't let the inaccessibility of a 
portion of a course prevent you from learning what the course has to teach.  There have been cases where I needed 
to understand software that was not accessible so that I could determine as an analyst if that particular software 
solved a given problem.  I needed to understand it but not necessarily use it myself.

Certainly if you see cases where a school seems to be clearly violating the law, you will need to decide if you 
should challenge them.  However, you will need to decide which battles to fight and when you simply want to get an 
education.  Using a human reader is sometimes hard to accept when we work with technology, and I believe we need to 
keep working to make technology as accessible as possible, but there are even advantages sometimes to using a human 
reader.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 16:45:12 -0600, Aaron Cannon via nfbcs wrote:

>Hi Jorge.

>If I were in your position, I might consider a Mac Mini.  You aren't
>paying for a screen you don't need (I'm assuming you don't use
>magnification), and you can have both OSX, Windows, and even linux.

>If you won't need OSX, then save yourself some money, and get a modern
>PC that has the specs you want.  Compiling programs and running IDE's
>is not generally all that CPU intensive, though extra memory never
>hurts.

>The other advice I would give you is that most CS programs suck at
>turning people into programmers, so if that's what you want to become,
>realize that you're going to have to do most of the work yourself.
>They're ok at teaching you programming languages, but very lacking
>when it comes to teaching you what you need to know to work as a
>software developer.  Likewise, a college degree does not make a
>developer, and in truth, it's not hard to find folks without degrees
>doing well in this field.  I'm not saying you shouldn't go to school,
>nor that anyone can make a living in the field without a degree, but
>if I were you, I'd very carefully weigh the costs and benefits.

>In order to be successful as a developer, in my opinion, you should be
>able to teach yourself new programming languages.  That can be hard
>the first time around, but does get much easier after each one.  While
>HTML is a very important thing to know, it's not really a programming
>language.  It's good to get used to teaching yourself new languages
>now, as it is not improbable that the language you will end up using
>on the job will not be one of the languages you were taught in school.
>I don't use any of the languages I was taught in college, except
>occasionally C.

>Still, learning languages is the easy, but vital  part.

>The other thing you should do is learn as many patterns as you can.
>Patterns are, in brief, ways in which programs or parts of programs
>are constructed.  The only way to do this is to get your hands dirty
>pawing through someone elses code, and figure out how it works.  This
>is assuming that the other person knows what they're doing.  The more
>code you grock, the more you'll be able to make up your own mind on
>which developers know what they're doing, and which don't.

>Fortunately, many of the patterns that you'll learn are applicable to
>many different languages, so don't worry too much about learning the
>wrong ones.  Of course, you won't be able to do too much of this until
>you learn a programming language, so that would be first.

>You should be able to figure out what languages your school will be
>teaching by a quick look in the catalog, or just by calling the CS
>department and asking.  Then, I wouldn't wait to be taught, but
>instead dive right in and start learning on your own.  You can learn a
>lot more when you're working ahead of the class.

>Otherwise, if you're looking for a recommendation for a first
>programming language, I don't think you can go wrong with Python.
>Alternatively, if you're really into web programming, JavaScript might
>be a good option, provided you're prepared to accept that there are a
>great many warts in the language.  If you do choose JS, I would learn
>it in Node first, before you try to run it in the browser, as you
>won't have to worry right away about the DOM, JQuery, and other
>complicating factors.  Also be smart in who you learn from.  Perhaps
>more so than any other language, a lot of people write and teach JS
>very poorly.

>Finally, I'll just say one more thing on the topic of degrees.  If you
>think you need one (and it's true that it will make it somewhat easier
>to get that first or second job, though how much easier, particularly
>after you've got some experience is debatable), know that you don't
>have to spend a lot of money.  There are a few (legitimately
>accredited) colleges which will allow you to test out of nearly all of
>your classes, for a fraction of the cost of taking them in the
>traditional manner.  Again, this is not for everyone, but certainly a
>great option if you are extremely self motivated, can study and learn
>independently, and don't mind some hard work.

>Anyway, these are just my somewhat controversial opinions, so treat
>them like you would treat anything else written by some crack-pot on
>the internet, and do your own research.

>In the interest of full disclosure, I went to college and I have been
>writing programs for nearly 20 years, but I didn't become a programmer
>until I got my first job and started working with some very talented
>software developers, who were kind enough to help a noob figure things
>out.  As for the way I went to school, I did it the traditional way,
>but I often wish I had done it differently, particularly when I pay
>the student loan bills each month.

>Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck.

>Aaron

>On 2/22/15, Jorge Paez via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Hi all:
>> My name is Jorge.
>> I just graduated high school last year and had to take a year off
>> because my family and I moved to Florida from New York City, so I was
>> waiting for the residency rule to kick in college wise because the
>> tuition is about half or more of what out-of-state students pay.
>> At any rate, I've already got my acceptance letter to community
>> college, and I'm going to be majoring in Programming and Analysis.
>> My question is, what computer would be better for me in terms of school
>> work?
>> I don't know what language my classes are going to use, but since I'm
>> also going to be doing a lot of work outside of class--I'm going to be
>> a freelance programmer on the side--I already know HTML pretty well
>> and I'm going to be learning other languages soon, what computer has
>> the biggest number of accessible development environments for the most
>> number of languages?
>> I have experience using both Mac and Windows, using Voice Over, JAWS
>> and System Access, so the screenreader isn't a problem for me.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Jorge
>>
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