Hello,

I’d say we should discuss some basics here for the benefit of many on this forum who wants to contribute code to NVDA.

First things first: before people learn the intricacies of NVDA source code, some knowledge of Python is essential. If Stephanie came onboard last year, I could have told her to learn Python 2; however, times have changed, and I recommend people who are newbies to learn Python 3. For most tasks, Python 2 and 3 will work well, but there are some internal things that require you to become familiar with Python 2 for a little while before NV Access declares transition to Python 3.

Most of us (including I) started out with writing NVDA add-ons. Some of the add-ons out there, including Enhanced Touch Gestures, Clock, and many others were written by developers prior to their exposure to internals of NVDA source code. Learning to write NVDA add-ons helps some people in practicing Python skills and getting to use high-level functions offered by NVDA.

It is indeed possible to modify NVDA source code with zero to limited knowledge of Python. But when it comes to actually digging into code and providing contributions, this quickly becomes an overwhelming task because not only a new programming language must be learned, but also one needs to know how certain things in NVDA works behind the scenes (via source code). This is one of the reasons why I always advise scripters of other screen readers to take some time off and learn Python before working on seriously transforming their scripts to NVDA add-ons.

In terms of what you need to know before seriously working on NVDA code contributions:

• Knowledge of Python is recommended.
• You need to know what a variable is, how to call and define functions, and know the differences between a for loop and a while loop.
• You need to learn how to think carefully before writing a conditional (if/elif/else) statement.
• You should be well-versed in organizing your functions, variables, conditional statements, loops and what not into distinct modules.
• You need to have a beginner’s grasp of what a class is, difference between class and object, and the big picture behind class inheritance.
• You need to be able to explain when to use lists and dictionaries, differences between a list and a tuple, how to read data stored in dictionaries, and how to add or remove items from containers.

Things you won’t learn right away but will be fruitful later:

• Research solutions on your own or work with others.
• Learn to read API documentation for various modules.
• Learn to debug your solution.
• Design a small feature and its benefits and drawbacks completely from scratch, and optionally (but I highly recommend it), code it and present it to the world.
• Design a large feature that requires collaboration with others, or if possible, learn to work with people on parts of a feature or test one.
• Be able to explain a feature to users, either something you wrote or someone else has written.

The items listed above are some of the activities a typical large software engineering team (such as NVDA developers) go through, especially for an international community like ours. I personally place higher emphasis on design and explanations. In case of feature explanations, this is the reason why I always ask add-on writers to write up a short readme explaining how to use their add-ons.

One of the things I did, which not only benefited the community but also something I enjoyed doing (and wanted to do for a while), is writing add-on internals. Basically, I would sit down in my “lab” (in front of my computers at home), sip through add-on source codes and think about the overall design of the add-on, its purpose, and what authors would have felt when they wrote add-ons. These notes, along with handy references were collected into an article that varies in length from an essay (four or five pages) to a thesis that’s suitable for graduate schools sort of (more than 70 pages long) depending on my overall familiarity with the add-on and if certain features need deeper exploration and explanation. This opportunity also gave me a chance to study the NVDA screen reader source more deeply, which became the basis for an idea I have about organizing a six month long course on diving into NVDA source code (in the book form, it’ll span at least a hundred pages, possibly more); I say “six months” due to vast amount of knowledge the NVDA source code contains, as well as give background info and explain the rationale behind some design choices made, along with some breaks in between.

Cheers,

Joseph

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of swwatts3@...
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2017 4:47 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] I am interested in programming for NVDA

Hi Joseph and Tony,

I apologize for the misleading post earlier.  I have no experience with Python and very limited coding experience with HTML. 

By way of background, I have used NVDA intermitently over the past few years and have grown to like the program.  I am impressed by the NVDA community and those who continue to dedicate time and effort to making it a viable screen reader alternative for use in business and education settings.  Because I have always been interested in learning to code, I thought this would be a perfect way to combine my desire to learn with a worthwhile endeavor like NVDA.

Let me know if you would like to continue this discussion off-line.  Otherwise, I am happy to answer questions here.

Kind regards,
Stephanie