[nfbcs] jGRASP Editor Plus Tips on How to get to know program accessibility/work arounds when you are new to programming

[Currin, Kevin]

Hi Cindy,

I have never used jGRASP, but I have used eclipse. If you do decide to go with eclipse, it's worth knowing that it uses a lot of memory and if you use it with jaws, you should have probably at least 4 gb of ram to stop it from freezing. When I used it for a class, I only had 2 gb of ram and it was terribly slow. However, it works find with my 8 gb computer. However, with the sluggish nature of eclipse and all of the key commands I had to memorize to use it, I had a really tough time with the object oriented java course for which I was using eclipse. I attribute this difficulty to accessibility because I was able to learn the programming concepts much better latter when I learned more about compiling code in the terminal. I was then able to just use notepad and the terminal, which cut down on a lot of the overhead and allowed me to focus on programming. However, things like jGRASP and eclipse are very useful in that they provide debuggers, good package management (at least for eclipse), and easy access to methods of objects and so on. 

I like the edsharp editor, which is developed specifically for blind users. It has cool features like speaking the indentation level of the lines. However, you can configure jaws to do this for any document. Edsharp has some compilation capabilities, but I have only used it for python and LaTeX. If you are interest, here is a link:
http://empowermentzone.com/EdSharp.htm

Thanks,

Kevin

________________________________________
From: nfbcs [nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Cindy Bennett via nfbcs [nfbcs at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:13 PM
To: nfbcs
Subject: [nfbcs] jGRASP Editor Plus Tips on How to get to know program accessibility/work arounds when you are new to programming

Hi All,

I am taking my first programming course next quarter. All examples
will be given in the jGRASP editor. Do any of you have experience
using this editor? I would prefer to use it for continuity with the
class but will take suggestions for preferred Java environments. I
have already been encouraged to use Eclipse.

Also, I am very new to programming. What strategies did you use to get
to know programming environments and to determine accessibility
barriers versus knowledge barriers? I do appreciate the resources that
have gone around in response to the research project and will
certainly check those out.

Thanks!

--
Cindy Bennett
1st Year Ph.D. Student, University of Washington
Human Centered Design and Engineering

Treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington
an Affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind

clb5590 at gmail.com

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