[nfbcs] Screen Reader & Coding

[Ryan Stevens]

Hi, Ida,

I went through that transition about a dozen years ago. To answer your first question, yes, you will get up to speed and used to working with just the keyboard and sound fairly quickly. In terms of coding and working with databases, the most popular screen readers are set up to work with them. There may be the occasional hiccup, especially when new versions of the programming language are released, but overall you should be able to code at the same speed as your sighted colleagues. You will also learn little tricks that help as well.

Take care,
Ryan Stevens


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ida B via nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2018 2:54 PM
To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
Cc: Ida B
Subject: [nfbcs] Screen Reader & Coding

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this group, and would love some advice. I am a 21 year old university senior studying computer science. I am extremely excited to begin my career in the field. Up until now, I’ve mostly programmed with screen magnification software. However, as my vision deteriorates, I am starting to transition to screen reader software like JAWS.

How long do you think it takes for someone to become an advanced JAWS user? I feel frustrated because I feel like it takes me a long time to navigate the computer using just the keyboard and my ears. Does this frustration ever go away? Will I ever become as fast at using the computer as my sighted peers?

For those of you who code, how do you do it? Especially in languages like Python that are super finicky about things like white space or punctuation. How do you get up to speed on a large code base with many different layers of code from front-end, to the database layer? What IDE or environment do you use?

I’d appreciate any advice, wisdom, and insight.

Thank you so much,
Ida B
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