[Mezzie]

> First, let me just comment on that comment by @conviencefee999. Kindly do your research before chiming into a discussion you quite clearly know very little about. I don't know your unique set of circumstances, but stating that one of the most viable career paths for a blind individual is not a viable career path is rather against the current and, as you yourself helpfully point out, anything but helpful. While it is true that the barrier to entry is still somewhat present, particularly for the age group OP is asking about, it can absolutely be done. Case and point being myself, as well as various others I know of. There are discussion groups about this topic, mostly in the form of the admittedly rather antiquated mailing list. An example is program-l over at freelists.org.

As a formerly blind and currently visually impaired person who programs, I'd even go so far as to argue there are some benefits to being blind. Humans are visual creatures, but computers aren't, and one of the stumbling blocks for humans learning to speak computer is wanting or needing visual representations of things and building layers of abstraction in part to deal with that need. We separate 'where', 'when', and 'why' a lot easier, I think.

[vidarh]

> one of the stumbling blocks for humans learning to speak computer is wanting or needing visual representations of things and building layers of abstraction in part to deal with that need.

I'm not blind, but fairly recently (couple of year; I'm 47) realised I have aphantasia. I didn't even know it was a thing or that others could see things in their minds eye - I thought people spoke metaphorically.

After learning that I realised that the way I "see" software structure as abstract relationships without a visualisation was very alien to a lot of people, who tend to rely on seeing the code.

Visual layout helps me build that abstract model rapidly, but once I have that model in my head I can mentally plan out code changes without looking much at the code, so I totally agree that needing visual representations can be a massive hindrance.

[MisterTea]

I am not blind but I am a visual thinker and have no trouble seeing how a computer works. I can easily visualize memory, data, code structure and so on.

[fhd2]

I'm not blind, but a relative turned blind relatively early in their life (when I was still a child), so it's been present in my thoughts at least. I love the take that there is an advantage - building stronger conceptual skills is what I'd say you're describing. In my experience it's quite difficult to find programmers with strong conceptual skills, so this rings true to me.