1. CAN BLIND PROGRAMMERS PROVIDE (ACCIDENTAL) INSIGHT INTO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE DESIGN? Andreas Stefik, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Computer Science Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

2. BLIND INDIVIDUALS FACE UNIQUE CHALLENGES WHEN LEARNING TO PROGRAM

3. Integrated development environments are often poorly accessible NetBeans XCode

4. Visualization is (obviously) not a sensible option for Blind Individuals Alice Unity 3D

5. Given that programming languages use text, they are a viable option for blind students How well do programming languages “read” through a screen reader?

6. SYNTAX IS HARDER TO UNDERSTAND THROUGH AUDIO

7. C-style syntax is hard to understand using audio for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { System.out.println(i); } This translates to: for int i equals zero semicolon i less than ten semicolon i plus plus right parent left brace

8. Initially, we thought a new language might be easier to “read” with a screen reader integer i = 0 repeat 10 times print I i = i + 1 end 1)Use plain English 2)minimize the use of esoteric symbols (e.g., {}, ||, &&, ===) 3)Be terse, but clear

9. We also used statistical measures of auditory comprehension to design talking debuggers Talking Debugger Artifact Encoding Loop Iteration 1 Loop Iteration 2 1 Nested If True 1 Nested If False End Loop 2011 Java Innovation Award

10. OUR SCREEN READER FRIENDLY PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE “SEEMED” EASIER TO UNDERSTAND IN GENERAL

11. Before starting the design of Quorum, we thought, let’s ask novices what they think The words for, while, and foreach make no sense.

12. Our broad goal of these surveys was to find out, “What words/symbols do novices think we should use in a programming language?” Functions with return valuesThis Null Exceptions/Throw We asked hundreds of novices what they thought the syntax of a programming language “should” be.

13. When we talk to novices about programming languages, they say … Standard Java Syntax: for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { } That’s not Greek, it’s Klingon* From a news article comparing Quorum to Perl: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665735/why-arent-computer-programming-languages-designed-better

14. EMPIRICAL STUDIES WITH NOVICES MAY REVEAL IMPROVEMENTS FOR PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

15. We setup a study on novice accuracy rates between three programming languages Randomo From medicine, we adapted the idea of a “Placebo” by randomly selecting syntax from the ASCII table

16. Novice Perl users could not program significantly more accurately than those using a programming language with randomly generated keywords Results show Quorum > (Perl = Randomo) Quorum: (M=.628, SD=.198) Perl: (M=.432, SD=.179) Randomo: (M=.341, SD=.173) Perl users performed no better than those using a Placebo? Let’s run a replication.

17. Java and Perl users performed no better than Placebo Users (Ruby, Python, and Quorum users did)

18. Our statistical models can estimate per-token accuracy rates, leading to changes in Quorum 1.7 Quorum 1.0 Syntax Quorum 1.7 Syntax Results suggest Quorum should allow: 1.Limited type inference 2.More “Ruby-like” if statements

19. One blind student, who has programmed in Python and Quorum, summed it up by saying: I have been, you know looking at it, and... the syntax is just very simple to use. I can just remember most of the keywords and so I just think it is pretty nice and flexible. From an interview with a blind student from Tennessee on Quorum 1.6, Sodbeans 3.0, and our curriculum/textbook

20. Working with blind individuals made us re-think the design of programming languages, which may benefit everyone Quorum: http://quorum.sourceforge.net/http://quorum.sourceforge.net/ Sodbeans: http://sodbeans.sourceforge.net/http://sodbeans.sourceforge.net/ Quorum 1.7 and Sodbeans 3.5 Early February