[nfbcs] Computer science major college question

Tue Jul 5 17:19:56 UTC 2016

I completely agree Deborah. People ask me all the time what accessible programming tools I use. They are either surprised or disappointed when I say I mainly use notepad and then compile on the commandline (usually cygwin on windows). I have used more complex editors, such as notepad++ and EdSharp, but for most of what I do, notepad works great and is perfectly accessible. 

When I started programming, which was only about 4 years ago, I took a python class and used notepad and did great. I then took a java class on object oriented programming and tried to use Eclipse and did not so well. While eclipse is much more accessible than most IDEs, it has a huge learning curve itself and constantly froze on my laptop with 2 gb of RAM. At the time however, I thought I just wasn't good at "real" languages like java and that oo programming was beyond me. When I revisited OO programming again later using notepad, I did just fine and didn't have nearly as many errors trying to get things working.

Kevin
________________________________________
From: nfbcs [nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Deborah Armstrong via nfbcs [nfbcs at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 1:07 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Deborah Armstrong
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer science major college question

I enjoyed reading through this discussion. I would add that if your name is out there and you can demonstrate your knowledge of programming you can probably find an employer who won't care about the degree.

But, if you are going to companies as an unknown, the degree is the only way they have of confirming your skills; same thing goes for a community college or even a MOOC certificate of completion.

One job I got back in the start of this century was writing JAVAScript. In the interfview, the guy told me he wouldn't consider hiring someone without a degree, and I didn't have one. I told him that JavaScript wasn't a "real" language taught by academics and I would like to show him my skills. So using just notepad on a tiny laptop, I made a simple web page with a form and some simple JavaScript to verify the accuracy of the entries.

What impressed the guy was that I could do it in notepad, even though I made a typo in the HTML that created a table. So he hired me, and then he tried to test other prospects by making them use notepad, which for sightlings who depend on authoring systems, didn't work so well. It was a borring job, I ended up looking a lot at other people's flawed JavaScript and fixing it, but there are worse ways to get a paycheck!

The problem blind people have today as that many of the programming IDES aren't accessible, so especially as a beginner taking programming classes, you could conclude that you can't code, when in fact you just can't hack -- in more than one sense -- the environment under which you are expected to learn. Many of us old-timers learned when the command line was king and we didn't need to futz with laying out objects on a screen, opening projects and dealing with anything graphical at all.

For example, I programmed back in the 1980s, but you wouldn't want to hire me today -- my skills are deprecated! I was looking in to writing some Android apps and was unhappy that Android Studio is so inaccessible. Most of the courses require you use Android studio, so I'll have to teach myself, I guess with Eclipse. I also looked in to writing iPHONE apps, and after reading a wonderfully detailed article here
        http://www.applevis.com/guides/programming-ios-programming-os-x-voiceover/voiceover-users-guide-xcode
On how to do this eyes-free, I decided it wasn't worth the effort -- had I been younger, I might have had a different attitude. I just don't have the requisite skills, like a knowledge of Swift to really follow this article.

The difference for me is that I know I know how to code, and having taken UML a few years ago -- that's another sstory, I do have some understanding of design patterns. But at nearly sixty years of age, I'm not willing to struggle with semi-accessible stuff just to get paid to code again. If your first experience is with something that's semi-accessible, you could conclude you lack talent which might not be at all true.

At the college where I now work, I think we've seen about twenty blind people attempt and fail at programming courses. I don't think anyone has succeeded yet, which is terribly sad, since I was a software engineer. I try to help them, but it's all integrated development environments these days and these twenty-somethings are so impatient. I wrote my own DOS screen reader in Turbo Pascal and assembly when I was their age, and I'm not any smarter than they are; I just have way more self-confidence -- always have!

If I was starting now, I'd take a year off from college, from any school, and hone my self-discipline. I'd master Linux, get hooked up with some open-source project, actively participate on forums, ask for mentoring.  These open source projects always need testers, tech writers and other community support personell. If you focus on doing that while you read code --lots of code -- work on understanding what it does -- you can then approach some employers after that year and also begin to ascertain whether you need to spend the time and money you'll need for that certificate or degree.

If you need money, take a year off and focus on writing apps. Get together with groups of local app developers; follow the above article; take some of the free online courses on writing apps, but just do it. You might sell your app and make enough money to help out your hobby lifestyle and you can then decide on the degree later.

And while academics sneer at JavaScript, it's a great first language if you don't know programming at all, as is the Bash scripting language, or in Windows the built-in PowerShell language. Lots of free resources for the absolute beginner who wants to master these, and if you're a Powershell or bash whiz there are plenty of Jobs out there for you.

We've been sold a bill of goods that you need a degree to succeed. That sounds sacreligious coming from someone working at a college, but the reality is that many people get the degree because they are afraid to pursue success without that lifeline!

--Debee

_______________________________________________
nfbcs mailing list
nfbcs at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nfbcs:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/kwcurrin%40email.unc.edu