Testers should learn to code?

It seems to be the "perceived wisdom" these days that if testers want to have a job in the future, they should learn to write code. Organisations are recruiting "developers in test" rather than testers. Using test automation tools (directly) requires programming skills, so the testers should acquire them, right?

I don't agree, and I think this is a dangerous attitude for testing in general.

Here's a story of two testers:

• Les has degree in Computer Science, started out in a traditional test team, and now works in a multi-disciplinary agile team. Les is a person who likes to turn a hand to whatever needs doing, and enjoys a technical challenge. Les is very happy to write code, and has recently starting coding for a recently acquired test automation tool, making sure that good programming practices are applied to the testware and test code. Les is very happy as a developer-tester.
• Fran came into testing through the business. Started out being a user who was more interested in any new release from IT than the other users, so became the “first user”. Got drawn into the user acceptance test group and enjoyed testing – found things that the technical people missed, due to a good business background. With training in testing techniques, Fran became a really good tester, providing great value to the organization. Probably saved them hundreds of thousand pounds a year by advising on new development and testing from a user perspective. Fran never wanted anything to do with code.

What will happen when the CEO hears: “Testers should learn to code”? Les’s job is secure, but what about Fran? I suspect that Fran is already feeling less valued by the organisation and is worried about job security, in spite of having provided a great service for years as an excellent software tester.

So what’s wrong with testers who write code?

• -       absolutely nothing
• -       for testers who want to code, who enjoy it, who are good at it
• -       for testers in agile teams

Why is this a dangerous attitude for testing in general?

• -       it reads as “all testers should write code” and is taken as that by managers who are looking to get rid of people
• -       not all testers will be good at it or want to become developers (maybe that's why they went into testing)
• -       it implies that “the only good tester is one who can write code”
• -       it devalues testing skills (now want coders, not [good] testers. In fact, if coders can test, why do we need specialist testers anyway?)
• -       tester-developers may "go native" and be pushed into development, so we lose more testing skills
• -       it's not right to force good testers out of our industry

So I say, let's stand up for testing skills, and for non-developer testers!