Accessible Development Environments

It appears from this article, http://apcmag.com/now_the_blind_can_program_in_net.htm , that the visual programming revolution has left some people so far behind that you could win an award in 2007 for giving them access to 1980s technology.

Debate

Are there tools that give a visually-impaired programmer a rapid perception of the relationships among code, objects and messages that is as good as or better than the browsers, inspectors and debuggers we have become familiar with since the launch of Smalltalk-80? If not, what can we do to promote the development of such tools?

Perhaps the ReadEvalPrintLoop, and tools based on a LineEditor? like ed (EdEditor?), or a FullScreenEditor? like the EmacsEditor, are part of the solution. For example, the SlimeMode for Emacs, which is an IDE for CommonLisp, may be useful. Emacs also simplifies interaction with gdb (the GnuDebugger?), at least for a sighted programmer: does Emacs improve or detract from gdb's native interaction with a visually-impaired programmer?

A partially-sighted programmer on IRC recently mentioned using VimTextEditor with very large text. GnuDebugger? command-line interface was useful to him, but slow and with a steep-learning curve.

This 2002 mail thread http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/newsLists/news.eclipse.tools/msg33209.html introduces the issues that a blind user faces using EclipseIde with a JAWS screen reader. The writer emphasizes the importance of the ShortcutKey?.

Resources

• http://web.archive.org/web/20080124024433/http://www.blindprogramming.com/

• http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com/

• GnuSmalltalk has nicknamed itself "the smalltalk for those who can type", due to its reliance on source code in text files, and a ReadEvalPrintLoop for the SmalltalkLanguage

• BeanShell and DrJava, IDEs that include REPLs for the JavaLanguage

• SlimeMode

• Interesting blog post http://compsci.ca/blog/blind-programming-literally/ about SubVersion's PeterLundblad? (of Google) and his Braille reader , inspired by http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/search/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193100330

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Discussion I don't have a visual impairment myself. But there is a good chance that Age-relatedMacularDegeneration will set in one day, but hopefully not for many decades. I am afraid that I am contributing to the above article with pure guesswork and google searches, in the hope that those of us who enjoy programming can use the discussion to determine what questions to ask programmers with visual difficulties in order to include them better, and to better prepare for a time when it affects us.

It sounds to me that the tools are very much lacking and there is a lot to be done, though it is not clear to me where the community should start.