I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows.
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
@matt I don't like vibe-coded anything, unless I know the person doing it is an experienced coder who is using AI to speed things up or help with the fundamentals of a new platform. It says a lot that I kind of want to try this new client. I won't, because I very much don't trust a vibe-coded app with my email, but I'm tempted.
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
@matt use OE classic. it's an email client that almost exactly mirrors outlook express but has been designed to work with modern, secure email accounts
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@matt use OE classic. it's an email client that almost exactly mirrors outlook express but has been designed to work with modern, secure email accounts
@sparksexist @matt Has OE Classic fixed its a11y issues? It had a few, for example to locate the messages list.
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@matt I don't like vibe-coded anything, unless I know the person doing it is an experienced coder who is using AI to speed things up or help with the fundamentals of a new platform. It says a lot that I kind of want to try this new client. I won't, because I very much don't trust a vibe-coded app with my email, but I'm tempted.
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@sparksexist @matt Has OE Classic fixed its a11y issues? It had a few, for example to locate the messages list.
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@sparksexist @clv1 @matt OE Classic? link?
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@sparksexist @clv1 @matt OE Classic? link?
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@sparksexist @clv1 @matt yeah, I found it, I just wanted to make sure it was legit lol. is this based on the original OE source code or what
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
@matt vibe coded or hand coded, all that matters is it works, especially for the person who wanted it. I never understood the problem with how a person arrives at a working solution. I mean who would complain about taking a car to get to a shop that's 3 miles away, sure you could walk there, the weird thing here is "people piling on them" If the code works and does what is requested, who cares where it comes from. Vibe coding is not as simple as "Write me an accessible email client." For quality there's still testing, spec design, more testing, redesign, etc. Vibe coding done correctly is still a lot of work. I say congrats to this person for taking the initiative and solving not only their problem but the same problem for anyone else smart enough to use the working code whether written by machine or man, who cares?
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@alexchapman @alexhall @matt at this point if that person can read code generated by AI and ensure it has no security holes, then it isn’t really vibe coding.
Vibe coding is generating code and not even looking at the code. Just build build build and not care what the code looks like because you just iterate based on features and have automated test (also vibe coded!) do the QA.
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@alexchapman @alexhall @matt at this point if that person can read code generated by AI and ensure it has no security holes, then it isn’t really vibe coding.
Vibe coding is generating code and not even looking at the code. Just build build build and not care what the code looks like because you just iterate based on features and have automated test (also vibe coded!) do the QA.
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@alexchapman @alexhall @matt there you go! And I’m glad someone with accessibility challenges is finding ways to get a product out faster to solve the needs of their community.
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@alexchapman @alexhall @matt there you go! And I’m glad someone with accessibility challenges is finding ways to get a product out faster to solve the needs of their community.
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
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@matt Yeah, I'd be perfectly happy if Microsoft would open-source Outlook Express, especially if I could have it as a portable app.
@jaybird110127 @matt forgive me but what's so great about Outlook Express specifically?
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I just read about a blind person vibe-coding a new email client for Windows. Not linking because I don't want people to pile onto this person, who is a respected member of the blind community and long-time accessibility advocate, though not a professional programmer as far as I know. Instead, I want to point out how badly the commercial software industry, particularly Microsoft in this case, has failed us such that an individual feels the need to do this. Don't know what to do instead though.
@matt There's a few of them now. As much as I'd love to find something fast, lightweight, portable and probably Win32, I'm not smart enough to audit security here. Rock and hard place comes to mind. I wonder whether anyone's forked Thunderbird and purely concentrated on GUI accessibility? Is the codebase too sprawling to do that with help from an LLM on a reasonably priced plan?
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@jcsteh @matt I don't know about open bugs or requests. From here it's more about being dissatisfied with how cluttered the GUI is. There's an NVDA add-on that makes keyboard navigation more consistent but I'm guessing that's doing some pretty heavy lifting because it makes an already slow app feel even slower.
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@jcsteh @Scott @matt I use Thunderbird as my only email client, and I've learned to work around issues, but I think part of the problem is a11y sometimes is completely screwed in releases. For example I filed a bug on something I consider very serious and basic: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2019407
When an email got deleted, the selected/focused email on the list would not be read, and this results in very weird behaviour having to move up and down to know where one is. The bug got solved, as far as I can tell, by accident on a new release. But being in the situation of an email client failing to do very basic a11y things is not ideal.
Even now, NVDA review cursor commands don't work on the email listview, so 4, 5, 6 won't read the words.
