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How A Blind Developer Uses Visual Studio

How A Blind Developer Uses Visual Studio on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2019–2023.

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Saqib Shaikh, a blind developer, shows how he writes and debugs code in Visual Studio 2017 using a screen reader. The short demo shows an expert doing ordinary developer tasks.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it, especially to developers losing their sight, as a concrete demonstration of coding with text-to-speech.

people recommended it
4
separate months
3
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2019–2023
“I think it is a good demonstration of an expert doing typical developer activities.”
— lzybkr, Oct 2021, in “How does apt render its fancy progress bar?”

What HN commenters said

9 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

lzybkrOct 2021Recommends

Saqib Shaikh, a blind developer at Microsoft, gave this short talk on using Visual Studio: ▶ this video I realize this isn't a console, but I think it is a good demonstration of an expert doing typical developer activities.

in “How does apt render its fancy progress bar?” · View on HN

DCRichardsApr 2020Recommends

I recommend watching (and listening to) this talk by Saqib Shaikh, a blind developer using Visual Studio and how we codes and debugs with his screen reader ▶ this video

in “Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?” · View on HN

ChrisRRApr 2020Recommends

I'm reminded of this short video of a blind software developer using Visual Studio. Maybe it'll give you some idea ▶ this video

in “Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?” · View on HN

dejawuAug 2019Recommends

On the other side of this, I found it very interesting how a programmer who can't see codes using text-to-speech: ▶ this video

in “What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?” · View on HN

cushFeb 2023Cites it

Here's a video of blind person programming with Visual Studio using a screen reader. It reads so fast the words come out to me like mumbles or almost a buzzing sound ▶ this video

in “Fastbook: Listen to Audiobooks Faster” · View on HN

withinboredomJun 2022Cites it

Windows has fantastic accessibility properties/support. They even have a blind dev working on Visual Studio (or did)[0] for awhile. Apple's accessibility options are not anywhere near on-par with Windows. Linux ... I honestly haven't ever tried a screen reader in Linux and I have a feeling it is 100% up to whichever dev implemented something with no centralized style of doing things. [0] ▶ this video

in “Welcome to the M1 Windows project” · View on HN

Show 3 more comments
jodrellblankApr 2021Cites it

My understanding is that blind or visually impaired people tend to use Windows because that's where the two(?) big screenreader programs run; JAWS is one[1], I forget the other but it might be NVDA[2]. Microsoft have traditionally had some focus on accessibility, e.g. there's a video from a few years back of a blind programmer demonstrating how they program in Visual Studio[3]. Outside that, Emacspeak[4] is an eyes-free Emacs, I think it can boot into that environment; it was developed by a blind person and claims: > Emacspeak introduces several improvements and innovations when compared with screenreaders designed to allow blind users to interact with personal computers. Unlike screenreaders that speak the contents of a visual display, Emacspeak speaks the underlying information. As an example, using a calendar application with a screenreader results in the blind user hearing a sequence of meaningless numbers; In contrast, Emacspeak speaks the relevant date in an easy to comprehend manner. > The system deploys the innovative technique of audio formatting to increase the band-width of aural communication; changes in voice characteristic and inflection combined with appropriate use of non-speech auditory icons are used throughout the user interface to create the equivalent of spatial layout, fonts, and graphical icons so important in the visual interface. This provides rich contextual feedback and shifts some of the burden of listening from the cognitive to the perceptual doma

in “Show HN: Giving my mother-in-law an easy internet radio with real icon buttons” · View on HN

3bollApr 2020Cites it

Hey, there you have a few references that could be of some help! Google: [link] Visual Studio: ▶ this video Forzano (Amazon) [link] , [link] Wishing you the best, J

in “Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?” · View on HN

jodrellblankFeb 2019Cites it

There's a blind developer giving a talk on Visual Studio accessibility here - ▶ this video - and you can hear examples of him using text to speech starting at about 0m 45s but he doesn't say how fast.

in “Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Testing, debugging & developer toolsUX & UI designSoftware practice, open source & careersscreen readerblind developervisual studioaccessibilitytext-to-speech