Thanks for asking.

QShould designers learn how to code?

ASure.

Do they need to?

I don’t know. When’s the last time you asked a print designer to create a Postcript file or PDF by hand? You never have. At most, your average print designer will do some basic pre-press prior to delivering the files. Then it goes to specialists who will tweak trapping and overprinting. Then it’ll go to plate/press/whatever you want to call it. I might be living in a fantasy land, but the fact that interactive designers even get ASKED this shows how bad the state of our tools are that even the most basic websites can’t be built with GUI-based tools.

To look at this another way, should developers know how to design?

Of course not! Programming at high levels is a specialized skill, best reserved for… oh, yes. Specialists.

Look, this isn’t complicated. Some projects can get by with minimal design work – a basic to-do list app can scrape by with mostly default UI elements. Some design projects SHOULD be able to implemented with automated tools. Some products need a full staff.