I'll agree with you there. It also helps a lot when outsourcing developers if you know code yourself, since you can keep an eye on what they are doing and spot

I'll agree with you there. It also helps a lot when outsourcing developers if you know code yourself, since you can keep an eye on what they are doing and spot bad coders before the project spirals into oblivion. Luckily, coding may be hard but it is also eminently accessible. One of my big gripes with biology has always been the lack of "community help". In biology, if you need help with something, you A) ask around the lab/department B) find papers, email the authors, pray they answer or C) perform ritual sacrifice and pray to the elder gods. In programming, you have thousands of great resources all over the internet. I honestly think that everyone can learn enough programming skills to be reasonably competent if they put some effort into it. You persevered through a PhD - I think you'll be fine with programming =D