Metaphor: So are you asking whether or not learning to use a hammer and saw outweighs becoming an architect? People who just learn to code are most likely to produce unstructured, difficult-to-maintain, "spaghetti code." Why? Because they are focused on a line-by-line development process, and rarely see or give thought to the overall structure of the software they are developing. This can be OK for small programs or software for personal use. Programs developed by coder-only people often have code that flows out like an amoeba rather than code that has an expandable solid structure to it--impossible for the next guy to alter or maintain. Granted some colleges don't see this and instead equate coding with software engineering. The best CS curriculum dwell on structure and testability of the software, and focus less on what textual syntax actually produces the executable binary code. True software engineers design the software--coder merely fill in the blocks within their little corner of the design.

Maybe they could run fiber-optics to the plane :)