Ask HN: How to prepare as soon-to-be blind developer?
Blind person here, happy to answer any questions. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone born blind, so whatever ends up working well for me might not work as well for someone just losing their sight, though I tried to take that fact into account.<p>The most immediate suggestions that come to mind are:<p>1. Learn to use a screen reader. You don't need an expensive one. NVDA on Windows, Voice Over on the Mac and Orca on Linux are the way to go. NVDA is probably the least quirky and easiest to find resources for. I'd recommend against Orca, while it can be used, we all know how tricky Linux on the desktop can get, and throwing a screen reader into the mix doesn't help.<p>2. Forget about the mouse. Screen reader users use the keyboard exclusively. Try disabling the screen too, many sighted users who practice with a screen reader end up relying on what they can see, which makes things more difficult.<p>3. Accept that inaccessibility is a fact of life, and it has to be worked around. Not all tools are accessible, and some are more accessible than others. If you're looking for an accessible IDE, Vs Code is great and constantly improving. Emacspeak exists, but I don't actually know anyone who uses it, and I know quite a few blind people in tech. Some things that you're now doing through a GUI are best done via the command line, Git is a good example. Programming tools usually aren't the problem, it's everything else that causes issues. Slack and Zoom work great, for example, but many smaller collaboration tools don't.<p>4. Not all areas of programming are equally accessible. I can't imagine a blind dev working exclusively on the front end, where there's a lot of CSS involved, and where you have to look at Figma designs and debug issues solely based on screenshots. Backend stuff is much more accessible, same with lower-level systems programming. Dev Ops is very much a mixed bag.<p>I'm happy to answer any further questions either here or via email, my HN username at gmail dot com.