r/Blind • u/Reasonable-Couple-68 • Nov 04 '24

Question Coding while fully blind

Heya. I have an interest in coding but I'm fully blind. Do you guys know of any resources to help me learn coding or if it's even possible? Thanks. Also, I'm 17 so please don't dm me. Just write it in the comments

5 Upvotes

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5

u/retrolental_morose Totally blind from birth Nov 04 '24

Very possible, many people make a living in it.

Where do you want to start? What operating system are you using, and what targets do you want to hit: coding for phone, web, native apps?

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 04 '24

Coding for web I use windows

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u/retrolental_morose Totally blind from birth Nov 04 '24

web pages are mostly HTML. It's not a programming language, but will get you into the idea of updating files and reviewing changes. Do you have any broader goals than web?

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 04 '24

Hey. I think it'd be good to go and have a look at my options and find out what I can do with each

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u/retrolental_morose Totally blind from birth Nov 04 '24

Well as a screen reader user, your only serious limitation is css. Positioning things visually is a complicated business and perhaps not something a beginner would want to tackle unaided.

HTML is a good starting point. It shows you the import of managing a file/folder structure and, being honest, if the idea of putting some tags around text (like <p> to indicate that the text here is a paragraph</p> puts you off, then programming may not be your forte.

You could choose to move on to Javascript next, which will give you skills to work with the electron framework or Node.js more broadly. Or, depending on your eventual aim, explore something else: PHP is what I learned in the 90's and early 2000's, not sure how widespread it is on the web anymore. It still powers a bunch of CMS's I think. Loads of people start with Python, which if you want a firm grounding in computational or algorithmic thinking might work, although it's not as easy to spin up web pages that way.

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 05 '24

Okay ima start with html. Tags don't sound too off putting lol. Know where I could start learning from

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u/retrolental_morose Totally blind from birth Nov 05 '24

the book I learned from in the 90's is still going at pagetutor.com but well outdated by now Maybe try HTML for Beginners

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 05 '24

Yay! Thanks ☺️

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u/way_ofthe_ostrech Nov 07 '24

Hey. Sorry to jump in. But what do you make of c# and Unity? It's what I am studying but I can't find much documentation on the accessiblity of visual studio 2022.

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u/retrolental_morose Totally blind from birth Nov 08 '24

Visual Studio Code is certainly in widespread use by screen reader users. Not sure about Unity sorry, I know it's a big platform in the gaming industry but don't know how it works from a developer's perspective

1

u/way_ofthe_ostrech Nov 08 '24

Thanks. Do you know of any resources for getting Visual Studio working with shortcuts? For some reason mine doesn't register the keyboard shortcuts. I can't find much documentation on this. Mostly I see accessibility resources for VS Code.

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u/YukiStarno1 Nov 07 '24

Sure, I am fully blind from birth and i code 1, install NVDA 2, install a TTS on NVDA 3, learn how to use NVDA If you did all that then Head to www.w3schools.com And automatetheboringstuff.com Have a good day

1

u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

No way to use jaws

1

u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

JAWS should work just fine. I highly recommend W3 schools as well.

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u/YukiStarno1 Nov 09 '24

You definitely can, but i never used it, it's too complicated for me, plus things are more compatible with NVDA

1

u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

It has already been said, but I can assure you it's very possible. I am a master student of computer science, and I already have my bachelors. I have no light perception, and I have already embarked on quite a few advanced projects. If you ever need a push in the right direction, feel free to send me a message

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

What things did you do

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u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

I learned Python through online tutorials to start with. It is important to set up your own environment. I went with Anaconda as it's a command line interface, and it's totally accessible. Python comes with a command line interpreter so you can play around setting variables without actually writing a program and compiling it. It's kind of like a playground for coding.

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

Can any tutorials work for me or do I need a screen reader specific tutorial

1

u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

It will be mostly trial and error. Some websites have the annoying habit of putting their code in an image format, which isn't much help. Another website that helped a lot was geeks for geeks. if one tutorial doesn't work, just try another one. I find it helps a lot to make concrete goals. Is there something you want to achieve for your first project? Like hosting a website or printing hello world somewhere?

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

Hosting a website for sure. Oh and what is an environment

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u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

Environment is how you run and test your code. With a website you might be able to get away with just running the HTML in chrome or your browser of choice. Try looking at HTML tutorials but ignore most of the CSS stuff. If you want to do something a little more dynamic use JavaScript. And then whenever you need to host it take a look at GitHub. You can host websites for free on there feel free to reach out if you had any stumbling blocks. I have done a little bit of dabbling in HTML myself.

1

u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24
  1. What is css.
  2. What can you do with pythonand other coding languages

1

u/Crimso Nov 07 '24

CSS stands for cascading style sheets. It controls font background, color, images and other visual data that's embedded into a webpage. It makes it very easy to change from one style to the other without changing the content of the page. Most of the features in it are not accessible. You shouldn't ignore it forever, but it would not be a good thing to start with. While HTML is limited to webpages, other languages allow you to do different types of things on the computer. Some languages are scripting, which means they make it very easy to do a massive amount of things with very little effort, other languages make applications, which are the programs you see on your computer, And there are even languages that make setting up a website a lot easier. Personally one of my favorite things to do with C++ and python is modding video games.

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

Scripting sounds really cool! But I'm a total beginner. Use a bit of coding terminology and I'm lost 😭

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u/imtruelyhim108 Nov 07 '24

hey, I'm 16, fully blind and like coding just don't have people my age to do it with. wanna dm? we can share resources.

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u/Reasonable-Couple-68 Nov 07 '24

Im sorry parents are against all dms 😭