Accessibilty - xarvh/squarepants GitHub Wiki

General

https://functional.cafe/@xarvh/110859970299178064

#actuallyautistic I find that the written documentation is key, and having some sort of officially curated free introduction resource. For example, the #rust #rustlang book takes a complex language with novel concepts and makes it approachable. #go also had a similar approach; these 2 languages were fast to pick up. Whereas with C or C++ the resources go into the weeds too quickly without explaining “why”.

Sure. So many of those languages have so many idioms at first that are opaque and tutorials in those languages jump in and say “just do it this way and ignore it for now” wayyyyyy too much. Or the stack versus heap issue in C; when should I use the heap? What’s the difference between allocators? Why do I care about a pointer? Or a null pointer? What does the UBF acronym mean? (I know the answers to those questions but to many it’s gibberish).

Sometimes it’s a level of abstraction problem. Sometimes it’s assuming too much prior knowledge. Sometimes it’s just poorly written or poorly conceived. And many times it’s paywalled in a book or course etc. and then you come to find out the paywalled content is just as bad as the free content.

Non-English speakers

Non-Native English Speakers Learning Computer Programming: Barriers, Desires, and Design Opportunities

TL;DR:

  • Use Simplified English without Culturally-Specific Slang
  • Use More Visuals and Multimedia
  • Use More Examples that are Culturally-Agnostic
  • Incorporate Inline Dictionaries
  • Lost in Translation: Prefer English Text Over Translations

Hedy

The approach is interesting, especially because of the experience the author has with the barriers that 12-years old encounter in programming.

Regarding the support for multiple languages, it contradicts the fifth point ("Lost in Translation") of the article discussed above, so I'm still not convinced. However, the language author mentions how having a programming language that caters to different human languages made many people feel included, and that alone is super important!!!

https://www.hedycode.com https://corecursive.com/hedy-with-felienne-hermans/