[seanmcdirmid]

Designers that spend time learning both to design and code well aren't great designers. Programming isn't the only core activity in a company, design is intense and none of the designers I know would have time to code even if they knew how; they just have so many things on their plate.

This applies to a small company of < 10 people. Do you really want your only designer writing crappy code while they have a huge backlog of design work to get done?

HN seems to be obsessed the designers are somehow broken because they can't code, that programming is to be worshiped and other essential activities devalued. Maybe this is a problem with the industry as a whole, but lately I have noticed that hiring good designers has become harder than hiring good coders.