[alexgartrell]

We're pretty open-minded with regard to what coding is.

If you use something like Django, you won't even interact with the database directly. I don't know if there is a coding-ish word for "writing SQL queries," but there's certainly more than SQL in database land.

Honestly, my number one tip for learning this stuff is just to read constantly and write code whenever you can. Also, sometimes you need to do projects that don't end in a product you can sell in order to learn new things, so get used to throwing stuff away (not literally, of course, but certainly from a revenue standpoint).

Overall though, knowing how to code (and having learned for the "right reasons") is hugely helpful in dealing with Software people in the future. I suspect you knew that already :)