From: Arun <arunlists@...>
Date: 2006-07-07T00:42:06+09:00
Subject: text to speech?

Hi, I'm new to Ruby and to Linux, but not to programming. I teach blind
people how to program in New Delhi, and it saddens me that they all use
MS Windows. I teach them Visual Basic version 6, which is far more
accessible to the blind than later versions, but that is another story.

Anyway, in looking for a programming environment well suited to Linux,
I examined Ruby, and loved it. Now, of course, for a blind person,
audio is as important as the screen is for the sighted, and even to do
your first "Hello World" program, you need text to speech to be
working.

I'm running Ubunty Breezy, and have Gnopernicus installed, but in the
terminal window, it only reads out part of what is needed: program
output is ignored. I'm therefore wondering how I might access text to
speech in Ruby, preferably in a manner that works independent of what
kind of Linux is installed. I was unable to get Emacspeak to say
anything, and did not have much joy trying to get it to compile and
debug Ruby code.

Ideas or thoughts related to any of the above would be highly
appreciated. 

Arun