Which programming environment and toolchain are best for web developers with severe muscular disabilities?

Question

I worked a lot in the field of affordable applications using TTS (Text to speech) and VR (Voice Recognition). I had to use one-handed keyboards for extended periods of time. The traditional development of UNIX (my pretty little black box of joy) is losing market share in more advanced technologies and development environments. Sophisticated graphical interfaces disappoint themselves, and the addition of additional difficulties made them unreliable. Given the options currently available, Microsoft seems to have the advantage of providing features in an environment for hosting programmers with disabilities. This question can simply boil down to the fact that the environment and toolchains best support automation and the idea that everything that the graphical interface can do, I can efficiently execute from the command line?

Answer 1

The traditional development of UNIX (my pretty little black box of joy) is losing market share in more advanced technologies and development environments.

Although there are many great web development-enabled IDEs today, such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, and Netbeans, many web developers find them unnecessary and continue to work completely in a standard text editor such as vi and emacs.

The Unix platform has a very rich selection of modern web development - Ruby on Rails, and Django - two of the most popular today. You could develop an application using one of these frameworks without using the entire IDE from the command line. Both of these structures are open source, free and work on different Unix platforms and non-unixy.

The gnome desktop has several accessibility features that can help you with your development. the mobility impairment section of the GNOME desktop accessibility guide may be most relevant to you. This will give you the best of both worlds in that you will have a very rich command line environment, but you can also run graphical applications and IDEs such as Eclipse. MacOS X can give you similar benefits.

If you find that the benefits of MS Accessibility on Windows are too great to decline, you might consider installing and exploring the use of Powershell. My understanding of Powershell is that it allows you to perform many GUI-based tasks completely from the command line (allowing you to interact with Windows in a more unix-like manner).

Answer 2

I am a Ruby on Rails developer and have fallen in love with the little use of the mouse that our tools allow. Here's a brief description of our most common tools: TextMate for Mac OS X and its cloned version for Windows e-Text Editor is probably the most accessible for keyboard use only. Their plugins (called bundles) make it easy to navigate between related files, they have a HUGE amount of fragments and templates available through the keyboard, and many command-line scripts that you run in a separate command-line window are available as keyboard shortcuts through editors . Shortcuts are easy to recognize and use, as they almost always correspond to what you typed, and they are extensible through the Bundle Editor.

Aptana RadRails is available in the same way as the Eclipse IDE, and I think you would not be interested in this ... the k-strength is weak in this.

I'm not sure which instances of TextMate / e-Text Editor are in * nix (emacs?). The only time I think you absolutely need to use a mouse is when you try to select a different set or when you try to resize tabs (both of which are available in the electronic text editor through the line at the bottom of the page.

And in the last note, I heard that vi and emacs are returning to the Ruby and Ruby on Rails community. If you are used to the Unix development environment, it may smile a little on your face ... I know what it was for me :-)

References

TextMate (Max OS X only)

electronic text editor (a TextMate clone for Windows that accepts TextMate packages)

Emacs Mode for Rails