JAVATM TECHNOLOGY CONTINUES TO EMPOWER BLIND DEVELOPERS
JCPenney's Jay Macarty Tells All


by Aaron Cohen

Other Cobol programmers may struggle and complain about having to make the
transition to new object-oriented and Web-based paradigms. But -- thanks
in part to Dallas-based TEK-TOOLS' Kawa -- Jay Macarty has done it with
his eyes closed.


            Jay Macarty at his workstation at JCPenney. The accessibility
setup includes a Braille terminal and headset.

Well, not exactly. Macarty is a sightless programmer who has been working
in retail giant JCPenney's IT department for over 16 years. And, while he
may not be able to see what's on his computer monitor, his eyes are
clearly open to the importance of JavaTM technology.

"When you have 25,000 users spread all across the country, a Web-based
intranet architecture becomes very appealing for rolling out your
applications," observes Macarty. "And Java is clearly a core technology
for any intranet development effort because of its extensibility,
security, and ease-of-use."

The problem for Macarty was figuring out how he would be able to
contribute to his company's Web push. As a Cobol programmer, Macarty
worked with text-based "green screen" applications that he could work with
relatively easily using either voice-synthesis tools or his refreshable
Braille display. The graphical interfaces of browser-based computing,
however, present him with new challenges. "Being totally blind, my
question was 'How am I going to be able to fit into the scheme of
things?'" he relates.

The answer came in the form of server-side Java technology. "Using Java
technology-based servlets, I can write web applications on the server and
let the browser handle the GUI. All I have to do is write the Java servlet
code to do the work and output the results using HTML tags," he explains.
"That's a very workable solution for me because I can focus the majority
of my time on developing the business logic part of the application. I
don't get bogged down trying to figure out a non-visual approach to a
visual form designer. I just let the servlet tell the client browser what
to do and move ahead."

Macarty has also been helped by a new product called a "Tactile Image
Enhancer" from Jensen Beach, Fla.-based Enabling Technologies, which
prints out screen captures with all text and lines embossed so that they
can be felt. "That lets me make sure that the servlet output is being
formatted as I expected," says Macarty. "That's been a tremendous help."

According to Macarty, finding the right development environment was also
essential to him being able to effectively build intranet applications for
JCPenney. "I tried all the leading development tools, but -- while they
may have been visually appealing, with a lot of drag-and-drop capabilities
-- I wanted something more straightforward."


That something turned out to be TEK-TOOLS' Kawa. "Kawa gave me exactly
what I needed: a simple, robust development environment that let me do all
my compiles and de-bugs from an easy-to-understand set of menus," he
beams.

Macarty says there are plenty of other reasons to stay away from more
complex Java platform development packages. "For one thing, some of them
have so many widgets and accessories that they can really end up taking
too long to learn -- when what you really want to do as a programmer is
start programming," he notes. He also says that many other vendors'
solutions add proprietary extensions to Java code in order to achieve
their extra functions. "That means you're locked into their development
environment from then on out," cautions Macarty. "But with Kawa you start
with pure Java programming language and end up with pure Java code, so
you're keeping all your options open going forward."

Macarty has already seen several of his applications move into production,
including a enterprise-wide e-mail directory that was migrated from the
company's earlier mainframe-based system.


He has plenty of praise for his employer, who has met his special needs by
supplying him with a variety of equipment, including a Braille personal
organizer and a Xerox Reading Edge scanner that includes a self-contained
speech card. "I can put a printed document into it, like a manual, and it
will read it out to me," he says. "They've also been very good about
letting me get any instructional materials I can find in electronic
format, which is much more practical for me than trying to attend a
class."

Macarty also gives Sun high marks for building accessibility features into
the Java platform, and for developing a language that doesn't depend on a
specific tool. "With other languages, you can't use them unless you can
use an IDE specifically created for them. But I began writing Java code
right in Notepad when I first started," he recalls. "Because of Java
technology's openness I was able to search for tools until I found the one
that was right for me. The combination of Java technology's openness and
Kawa's simplicity is just perfect for someone in my position. I also
believe that the Accessibility controls built into the components of the
Java Foundation Classes (JFC) software and the availability of the
Accessibility API make the Java platform a productive choice for blind
programmers and clients alike."


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