As a programmer, you cannot count on a designer understanding what’s feasible to program for a game. Even more so, as a designer you cannot assume that a programmer really understands what ends their systems, algorithms, and heuristics serve.

So if one intends to work effectively in a team with someone from a different educational/skill focus, it helps a lot to understand the basics of the other person’s field.

As for what makes you a better designer yourself… I find the comment about directors in the Lost Garden quote particularly naive. The best directors aren’t necessarily camera men, but understanding how a camera works and what you can do with it is, from what I’ve always heard, essential to good movie making.

If the quote is referring to a “common” cameraman whose job is not creative at all, then the comparison is probably misguided, as programming is inherently creative (albeit to greatly varying extents). The better comparison is to directors who have a good deal of knowledge about how to operate a camera to good effect.

Film geniuses like Spielberg started with a home video camera making WWII movies (inspired by his father’s stories) in his back yard. I’m sure he learned a lot from this and I’ll bet some of the most important lessons were about the nature of the camera itself.

Of course, there’s a larger issue underlying the question of whether or not designers need programming knowledge or background, and it has a lot to do with roles and process in game development. Without stated assumptions about what the designer’s job is to begin with, we can hardly talk about what background she needs to fulfil her role.

Eric Brosius, BABY. His audio ROCKS MY WORLD. Not to mention your friend and mine, RobotKid of I.T. (not Kool from Kool and the Gang).

But I might be a) a fanboy, and b) a big audio nerd.