It goes without sayigg that I support this proposal one thousand percent. College students may even find a Keysoft programming environment the perfect opportunity for an independent study, especially if they plan on working in the AT field after completing their academic education.
On 6/11/10, Joseph Lee <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear HumanWare staff, BrailleNote users and others, > This is Joseph Lee, a computer science student at University of California, > Riverside. I'd like to thank HumanWare team for their continued effort in > providing support and assurance for BrailleNote users around the world. As a > college student with an interest in BrailleNote and other assistive > technology solutions, I'd like to suggest a small program to perhaps allow > us - students who are learning computer science and other > programming-related fields - to try out writing programs for BrailleNote > family of products. > One of the usefulness of the BrailleNote is that there are facilities for > running select type of programs and extensions offered by HumanWare and > Sendero Group. At this stage, this includes applications that are run on the > browser (via Javascript) and text adventure games (Inform interpreter), as > well as GPS and Oxford Dictionary for KeySoft. While we feel that these > methods of running programs (via web browser and through extensions) is > sufficient at this time, there might need a time when we need specialized > tasks that we want to see our BrailleNotes perform. These may include > advanced calculations such as unit conversion and factorials, support for > reading XLS files and so on. Even though we the programming students lack > specific knowledge of how exactly KeySoft operates, maybe we could test our > knowledge of programming (at least C++) and practice our skills on a device > that is a tool to our education. > With this in mind, I'd like to present a small proposal for at least > allowing programming students to try out writing small native programs for > KeySoft. This would have a number of benefits for both HumanWare and "future > developers." First, it would provide an environment for students to practice > our skills with friendly interface of KeySoft. Second, with help from > students who are knowledgeable about BrailleNote, Humanware R&D team would > find useful solutions to problems and suggestions quicker. Third, it would > allow HumanWare engineers to become "our mentors" - providing support for > future programming apprentices to gain insight into how software is > developed under his or her fingertips (using a device that we love and use > everyday to help us go through school). > We'll make sure that the programs that we write with this interface (if > implemented) would not only provide benefit to us in helping us learn more > about programming, but would have useful quality that would benefit fellow > users of BrailleNote family of products. Of course, if legality is involved > (confidentiality), we the students will keep that in mind when using it. > Thank you for your considerations. Hope to hear your response about this > proposal. > Sincerely, > Joseph S. Lee > University of California, Riverside > > -- Have a great day, Alex (msg sent from GMail website) [email protected]; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
