[Catalyst] ANNOUNCE: Catalyst::Devel 1.07 andCatalyst::Manual5.7012 released to CPAN

[Robert L Cochran]

I have worked with blind developers in person, not just one but several,
and expect to do so again in the future. In our shop we provide them
with JAWS software and text-to-voice devices. The merely low-vision
people get powerful magnifiers and widescreen monitors. Anyhow it makes
me shudder to think of having to deal with YAML as Octavian mentions. He
is right, it is very very very hard for a blind person to work with
space-padded stuff. A language or platform shouldn't be closed off or
made impossibly difficult to handicapped individuals no matter how
bright they are -- please consider that. Let's go for solutions that
work for everyone.

Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA


Octavian Rasnita wrote:
> From: "Marcus Ramberg" <marcus at nordaaker.com>
>   
>>>> example of a case where POD and YAML were causing new users  
>>>> confusion?
>>>>         
>>> YAML is hard to understand for a blind developer because if he  
>>> arrows up or down the  text, he hears the current line spoken, but  
>>> he doesn't know how many spaces  is that line indented.
>>> YAML is useful only visually, but not all  the programmers can see,  
>>> so from this point of view, other configuration modules are better.
>>>       
>> Does that mean it's impossible to code python if you are blind?
>>
>> Marcus
>>     
>
> Nothing is impossible, but it is much harder.
> Some blind users which became blind early enough and learned to use Braille, can use a Braille display, and it is easier that way to "see" the indentation.
> I can't read Braille, and a Braille display is pretty expensive anyway.
>
> It is also possible to hear the number of spaces when using a voice synthesizer, but it is not very friendly to use a language like Python. The languages like perl, Java or C# that use blocks enclosed between { and } are much more friendly.
>
> Octavian
>
>
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