[nfbcs] Is majoring in information technology in a mainstream college a good idea?

[Jim Barbour]

Maybe in the very beginning she will need a skill reader, but the goal should be that any reader who can take direction from you will work well

Make them a chart that shows how to read square brackets, braces, parens, semi-colons, etc, etc.

Teach them to read from left ot right and to *not* parse expressions.

As an easy example,

(x + 1) - 2

should *not* be read as "x plus one, minus two." Instead it should be read as "open paren x plus 1 close paren minus 2"

This gets more intimidating with longer, more complex expressions. But, a reader should be able to read it and should be able to understand exactly what is being communicated.

It's also worth noting that code can almost always now be gotten electronically, which is the right way to look at code these days <grin>

Jim

On Fri, Aug 04, 2017 at 01:27:11PM -0600, rjaquiss via nfbcs wrote:
> Hello Amy:
> 
>      I think an IT or CS degree is certainly doable by a blind person. I
> obtained a BS in Computer Science in 1976, worked for Tektronix for 23 years
> and the NFB for 5 years. Now, I do some consulting work. I am a braille
> reader and use a braille display along with JAWS.
> 
>      I suggest that you learn braille if you don't already know it. I find
> that an 80 cell braille display is invaluable when I program. Object
> oriented program languages such as Java, Python, c++ and c# indent blocks of
> code. Python requires blocks to be indented. A braille display displays
> lines showing their indent.
> Here is an example of a simple Java program.
> 
> 
> public class Main {
>     public static void main(String[] args) {
>         System.out.println("Hello, World!");
>     }
> }
> The web site the above code is from explains the various lines.
> http://www.learnjavaonline.org/en/Hello%2C_World%21 
> 
> Note there are two levels of indent in the above program. 
> I would definitely look at free tutorials for learning a language like
> Python or Java. You will likely need a skilled reader to deal with the
> interactive development environments (IDE) that your school uses. The
> Eclipse IDE can be used by a blind person. Hope this helps.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> 
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