Colin Anderson (7/3/2007)
I'm going to bea bit pedantic in my opinion by saying that you have to be careful of the terms that you use. The only communication skill a programmer needs is the ability to communicate with a computer. A programmer will not design a system, they will be given a design that they have to program.
i disagree. if the programmer can't communcate well with at least the person/people supplying him/her with the spec, s/he will quite likely code what s/he THINKS is required, rather than what IS required. i've seen it countless times. on one occasion, a programmer of my acquaintance was told that he should stop an application producing a certain error message: he removed the error message.
i'd go further: the best programmers give people what they need - and sometimes that's different from what they ask for.