Oh, and one more thing (Score 3, Insightful)

Good article. I agree about communication and people skills being valuable to programmers. I'd add one other thing that has me pulling my hair out as both a developer and as a manager of developers: the lack of fundamental business knowledge. Developers need to figure out where they fit into an organization, how organizations are structured, and what considerations they need to take into account that are based outside technology but have deep technological impacts.

I often compare it to being a lawyer (as any analogy, it breaks down, but it's useful to consider). Like lawyers, tech people have a basic skill/knowledge set that is unfamiliar to execs. Like lawyers, we are highly specialized in our training and in applying intellect to solving complex and comprehensive problems. And like lawyers, mistakes can be extremely costly. Unlike lawyers, however, we do not give programers any kind of insight into business structures, concerns or patterns in school. As a result, many developers don't really know where they fit into an organization, how they can partner with other business units, or when to compromise "ideal" for "useful"--i.e. when expediency is required and how to evaluate trade-offs from a comprehensive perspective. That leaves us wandering a mine field with no idea that tap-dancing isn't very wise...