Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?
I&#x27;ve been very low-vision since birth and having glaucoma (since birth) meant that I lived with the very real possibility of going blind.  I knew this from the time I was a child and preparations were made.  Thankfully my glaucoma has been under control for many years at this point, though I&#x27;m still extremely low-vision.  So what follows is just some random points, as I don&#x27;t really know how to keep this post reasonably short, nor what should go in what order.  So hopefully this doesn&#x27;t devolve into rambling :) Anyway, some observations and lessons:<p>- Others have mentioned touch typing.  I was taught touch typing from an early age with the help of an educational support teacher.  I can say that it&#x27;s one of the most valuable skills I have and I&#x27;m really, really thankful to the special teachers that put in the effort with me over those years.<p>- I naturally gravitated to computers.  I don&#x27;t know what it was, but after seeing them in school, I had to have one! I never got into blind sports as a kid and couldn&#x27;t play most regular sports at school, so my parents saw the opportunity of computers as something I could get into.  Something else I&#x27;m <i>really really</i> grateful for (I&#x27;ve been incredibly, <i>incredibly</i> lucky).  The rest is history.<p>- I&#x27;ll stress again - if you love software engineering and computers, there is no reason at all that it can&#x27;t be your profession.<p>- Tech-wise, I use a magnifier on my Android phone and I use the magnifier on OSX.  On Windows, it&#x27;s easier to sit close to the screen.  If you&#x27;re at the stage where you need screen magnification, I can say that I&#x27;ve found the OSX built-in magnifier along with the trackpad a stellar combination.<p>- I find it difficult to locate the mouse pointer, so I use an extension called Saka Keys in my browser, which allows me to follow links on pages without having to use the mouse.  I primarily use the command line for things if I can, especially if I might be on another machine that I can&#x27;t get as close to as I need (eg- helping a friend quickly).  You get to a point with touch-typing where you can feel when you&#x27;ve made a typing mistake.  You also get really good at memorizing stuff, as others have said.<p>- At work, don&#x27;t be afraid to speak up about what you need.  This is tough.  For many years I was embarrassed about needing help.  It&#x27;s illogical, I know, but it happens.  You want to be independent and prove that you can be &#x27;just as capable&#x27; as everyone else.  That&#x27;s a double-edged sword though.  People WILL forget you are vision-impaired.  I had a friend that I&#x27;ve known for years ask me why I sit so close to the webcam a few days ago when we were video chatting.  My webcam is on top of my monitor.<p>- Believe it or not, people WILL forget you are vision impaired or even blind.  I have plenty of experience with the former.  If you&#x27;re fiercely independent, people won&#x27;t think to offer you help.  You need to get comfortable with asking for help when you need it.  It&#x27;s a long, long process and something I&#x27;m still not 100% on myself; it&#x27;s difficult.<p>- A case in point: At work, for the longest time if somebody wanted to show me code or talk me through code, I&#x27;d feel too self-conscious and awkward to say anything as we sat there and they started talking through their code.  You get really good at memorizing stuff and going off what they say along with the broad &#x27;shape&#x27; of the code.  It would only be when I needed something specific, like they were pointing to a value or something, where I would lean in and say &quot;what was that value again?&quot;.  Nowadays I&#x27;m much more comfortable in my own skin and I simply ask them to either enable the magnifier on their machine, show me code through a remote desktop connection or I go to my machine and I have them talk through the code while I&#x27;m sitting as close to the screen as I need to.<p>- On a more philosophical note about other people; you&#x27;re going to come across some strange, but well-intentioned behaviour.  I&#x27;ve had new co-workers ask me why I sit so close to the screen; people assume if you&#x27;re wearing glasses that your vision must be fine.  You&#x27;ll get really annoyed at the &quot;sitting close to screens ruins your eyes&quot; crowd; yes, I&#x27;ve been told (with good intentions) that sitting so close might damage my eyes.<p>- The way I think of this is that people are generally good and I&#x27;m happy to answer questions from anyone, as long as they&#x27;re made in good faith.  Often I think that people are just uncomfortable with talking about disability.  Being a kind of a taboo, they think it&#x27;s better to &#x27;not say anything&#x27;, or they&#x27;re afraid of being rude.  I&#x27;d rather people ask and I&#x27;ve also become a lot better at being forthcoming about what I need.<p>- I&#x27;m still learning not to shy away from being a &#x27;vision impaired&#x27; person.  There are some YouTubers that I recommend which I find really inspiring and helpful in this regard:<p>- The Blind Life is a YouTuber (who if I recall correctly has RP) who focuses on assistive technology and gadgets.<p>- Molly Burke does some great stuff.  She is also blind, RP I think.<p>- For disability more generally, I cannot recommend &#x27;Special Books By Special Kids&#x27; highly enough.  It will literally change the way that you react to people.  It is utterly incredible.<p>I know it&#x27;s very different when you haven&#x27;t grown up with a disability and suddenly you have to deal with it vs it being &quot;the way it&#x27;s always been&quot;, but I hope some of this might help and I wish you all the best.