Can PHP be easily accessible by Visually Impaired Programmers?

When we talk about programming; we assume that it is a difficult task. If we normal people consider it as difficult task then it is a thought worth thinking upon as to how it can be accessed by those who are disabled ones?

While discussing about such topics, disabled people are generally ignored. They are just seen with pitiful eyes. But, these people can also do wonders in the programming field if they get a perfect platform to showcase their abilities.

For applications that need proper employment, this proves to be very true. It’s not necessary for everyone to have these IDE tools however these definitely increase the productivity and it’s mandatory for disabled ones to be fast and quicker than everyone else.

In this technical world, no one has the chance to enjoy leisure time. So, be it a blind or a well sighted person; everyone has to give equal performance. How can IDE be useful to blind to boost up their productivity, learning process as well as workflow?

Every IDE tool must have the below mentioned features:

• Easy Accessibility including menus and title bars.
• Easily accessible code completion, PHP documentation as well as pop ups.
• Easy community engagement.

Let’s discuss about some of the IDE tools:

• PHP Storm: It is one of the best IDEs which offers instant support to new frameworks and technologies like as Laravel and HHVM. It has very amazing features like as renaming, refactoring and moving which take a lot of details.

  Unfortunately, these are not easily accessible. Sometimes, even there’s a difficulty in accessing the main window and hence if the window is inaccessible then even other features lack accessibility. Even there are no updates regarding improvement in accessibility.

• Sublime Text: This is a multi platform lightweight IDE which can be easily modified as per the need with the assistance of innumerable plugins. But when it comes to accessibility then this tool too can be considered as improper.

  As none of its features are quickly accessible by screen readers and even when questioned about this, none of the team members offer proper responses.

• NetBeans: This one is an IDE that is most popular for developing snippets as well as its “quick fix” functionality that helps you to carry out many things automatically. It’s bug reporting is also very good.

  Talking about its accessibility, as compared to other too; this one seems to be better. The code navigation seems easy along with extra keystrokes that smoothly maintain the reader’s focus to the navigator.

  Very soon, this will have some extra accessibility features as well.

  
• Other IDEs like as Zend Studio, Eclipse PDT and more: PHPStorm and others are better than these IDEs. But when it comes to the ease of access then Zend Studio is more preferable as compared to PHPStorm.

  When it comes to accessibility then the code editor window and other windows are easily accessible. Further, it also offers easy access to code assist suggestions and the documentation.

  Among all the other IDEs, Zend Studio and Eclipse PDT are the most accessible ones. For Eclipse PDT, accessibility is a very serious issue and constant efforts are made by them to improve it.

  For visually impaired people; Eclipse PDT is the recommended one.

Wind Up

We know PHP is a very well known programming language but when it comes to its accessibility then it is not very useful. The above mentioned PHP tools are measured based on their accessibility and here Eclipse IDE are the recommended ones.

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