Ask HN: What would be the best programming language for a blind person to learn?

4 points by lessthanseventy 5 years ago | 5 comments

What language is easiest to reason about non-visually? I'm also wondering about things like IDE support for screen readers, and any tools built/adapted specifically for the blind?

gostsamo 5 years ago |

Surprisingly, but python. If you set your screen reader to read indentation, you have well formatted code code, without endless parade of braces to keep tab on. Of course, most current languages have formatting rules that will restructure the file if requested, but it might create issues during pull requests toward old code. Plus, python is nicely verbose and it consists of english words both as keywords and the standard library which makes reading fast and easy. Finally, it is rather popular and finding work should be a tat easier.

Resources to find help from other blind devs are pythonvis at freelists dot org and program-l at freelists dot org.

P.S. There is a quorum, a programing language and an ide to introduce blind people to programming, but it has educational purpose and might be outside of your needs.

lessthanseventy 5 years ago | |

Thank you so much. That's sort of what I expected to hear honestly. I've been using Doom Emacs lately in anticipation of transitioning over to Emacspeak. I still have some remaining vision but considering my disease is degenerative I'm thinking towards the future. I can imagine dealing with whitespace is easier than getting lost trying to find a missing bracket or brace or whatever.

gostsamo 5 years ago | | |

In case of need, VS Code currently has extremely good accessibility. Use it if Emacs-speak is the only reason to use Emacs.

Generally, language servers currently are rather good and can help with braces, so if you are already proficient with certain language and technologies, double on them to avoid the extra learning curve. Switch something only if you really need to. I know lots of people who happily use PHP, C#, Java, and so on, so do not limit yourself unnecessarily.

lessthanseventy 5 years ago |

I'm also wondering what would be the most likely to lead to a fully remote position that would allow for autonomous / asynchronous work. I'm working in web development right now and long term i would like to get into something that would give me more freedom to set my own schedule.

AbdulC137 5 years ago |

Not a language but macbooks do have a feature that will read text for you.