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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2021 - 03 - 19 - ID#m8uf16
6
How to learn Swift? (self.Blind)
submitted by YoYo31415
I want to try making an iOS app, but I’m having trouble finding screen reader accessible material to learn Swift. Has anyone found a good place to learn? I don’t know Braille, and I’m a relatively new Voiceover user...I figure Swift will give me some motivation to get better at it. I know there’s a Playgrounds app for basic stuff, but games aren’t really my thing, I’d rather just find a tutorial and then try to make stuff. Any ideas?
ronaldoMo 4 points 2y ago
I am blind guy who codes in swift. Try hackingwithswift website it will teach you from start to intermediate.


follow my youtube channel i will post swift xcode projects to my channel if you want
YoYo31415 [OP] 2 points 2y ago
Thanks for the lead! What’s your channel name? I’d totally listen to Xcode/Swift videos if you have any.
ronaldoMo 1 points 2y ago
Here is my youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_7sedpkwbotqcGD4HknepQ

I haven't uploaded any swift/xcode videos yet. But I will upload swift/xcode projects soon. Hope you like it.
YoYo31415 [OP] 2 points 2y ago
Thank you!
Fridux 2 points 2y ago
The best way to learn a language, any language, is to write software with it. Read some tutorials just enough to get your feet wet, but once you feel comfortable writing code of your own, start making stuff.

Swift in particular is a very easy language to pick up, but don't be fooled, because it can reach levels of complexity comparable to those of C++. I learned enough Swift to write apps in two days with prior experience in Apple's frameworks and Objective-C, but over a year later I'm yet to master the language.

I also recommend learning SwiftUI, a declarative user interface framework designed specifically with Swift in mind, as its declarative nature makes writing visual user interfaces a breeze even for us, if you don't come across one of its many bugs or missing features, that is.

Regarding documentation, Apple has some of it at swift.org, as well as some E-books at Apple Books.

I'm usually answering questions at /r/LearnProgramming, /r/Swift, /r/SwiftUI, and /r/iOSProgramming, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask at any of those places, or even privately. I am also making myself available to write simple working examples if you need that to learn how something works. I can also provide help using Xcode from the perspective of a blind programmer, as I use it for all my coding needs.
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Thank you so much for all the info and the offer of help. I may take you up on that as I get further into this! I’ll check out some of those resources for sure. I do have some prior programming experience, but I’m not very skilled, and I’ve only ever coded visually...doing it with a screen reader is completely new to me. I’m excited to give it a go though!
Unlikely-Database-27 2 points 2y ago
Use xcode. It works fine with vo. Gotten better over the years too.
YoYo31415 [OP] 2 points 2y ago
Will do. Thanks!
CloudsOfMagellan 2 points 2y ago
Follow the official documentation and tutorials
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Hmm, I had trouble understanding the formatting on the code snippets...I couldn’t tell where the spaces and line changes were for some things even going character by character. But maybe that’s just my newness to voiceover? I’ll try again.
CloudsOfMagellan 2 points 2y ago
This is quite a rapid introduction but works for me, make sure you turn punctuation up to all
https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/GuidedTour/GuidedTour.html
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Is there a way to get it to reliably read the spaces in the code snippets? I tried making a custom punctuation group that replaced ‘ignore’ with ‘space’ for the spaces, but it started reading 3 spaces between everything, so I think I’m missing something lol. Reading by character on the ‘All’ punctuation group only seems to catch the spaces sometimes and not others. Maybe the times it misses them it doesn’t matter to the code formatting? Not sure.
CloudsOfMagellan 2 points 2y ago
The spaces don't really matter
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Ok, found the ‘All’ button for punctuation...thanks for that! And the link!
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