[nfbcs] FW: [program-l] Re: Inquiry about accessible Programming Languages

Fri Jun 15 03:59:13 UTC 2018

That would be awesome!

> On Jun 14, 2018, at 20:00, Vincent Martin via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> If I end up staying here in the Atlanta area, I intend to start a camp for blind kids using the language.  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Rasmussen, Lloyd via nfbcs
> Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2018 10:46 AM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Rasmussen, Lloyd <lras at loc.gov>
> Subject: [nfbcs] FW: [program-l] Re: Inquiry about accessible Programming Languages
> 
> The Quorum language was developed to help blind students learn programming concepts. Up to now it has run in versions of the NetBeans environment. But this is changing.
> If you are interested in accessible programming environments, and especially if you live in the Austin, Texas area, you might want to sign up for the conference described below:
> 
> Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
> National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress
> Washington, DC 20542   202-707-0535
> http://www.loc.gov/nls/
> The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress, NLS.
> 
> From: program-l-bounce at freelists.org [mailto:program-l-bounce at freelists.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2018 12:24 AM
> To: program-l at freelists.org
> Subject: [program-l] Re: Inquiry about accessible Programming Languages
> 
> We are going to doing our first usability tests with it at EPIQ, the Quorum conference, in Austin in mid-july this year. From there, if people like it as is, we'll release it quickly after that for Windows only at first. If people want revisions first, then we'll probably spend a few months revising first before we put it out there. So, in other words, it kind of depends on the user feedback we get.
> 
> It's a lot different than Sodbeans on the accessibility side. It's very literally a complete rewrite of the GUI system (no swing), the accessibility system (all from scratch) and every component in between. That's a lot of hard work to get working, but the great part is that, unlike Sodbeans where we're stuck if one of Oracle's systems is broken for accessibility, we can change virtually anything in the system. I mean, we can reroute keys in weird ways, have total navigation control, and near complete control of what we tell the screen reader. If we want to tell the IDE that a spinning 3D spaceship is accessible, we can tell JAWS whatever we please. We're still working on it, but from a research freedom perspective, it's been a dream of mine for a decade.
> 
> So, to say the least, inventing it has been full court press in the lab and really hard. We stumped techs at Microsoft a few times. But, everything is coming together and I'm really, really, excited about people trying it for the first time!
> 
> For those not familiar with EPIQ, info is available here:
> 
> https://www.eventbrite.com/e/experience-programming-in-quorum-epiq-2018-tickets-40859002376
> 
> It used to be closed to the public, but we opened it up this year, so anyone can attend if they want to. So if someone wants to attend and tell us they love it or hate it, they're totally welcome.
> 
> Stefik
> 
> On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 4:23 PM, <program-l-bounce at freelists.org<mailto:program-l-bounce at freelists.org>> wrote:
> When's that expected, or do you know?
> 
>> On 6/5/18, Andreas Stefik <stefika at gmail.com<mailto:stefika at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Ya, to say the least, there's a reason why we're replacing Sodbeans. 
>> Trying to convince NetBeans to be accessible has always been a bit of 
>> a bandaid, because NetBeans itself is built on Swing, which was never very accessible.
>> Quorum Studio isn't ready for release yet, but we have total control 
>> of the accessibility pipeline. It's been a difficult road to invent 
>> the thing, but the amount of control is worth it long-term.
>> 
>> Stefik
> …
> 
> 
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