Ask HN: Do we regret forcing designers to learn to code?

Nobody has forced designers to learn to code, but I for one am happy to see so many UX professionals taking an interest. It's the job of a designer to clearly communicate their vision to developers so that it can be implemented. Designers who have a basic understanding of HTML/CSS are unquestionably better equipped to do that job.

Consider a dismissable modal that appears in the center of the screen. As a front-end developer, I would like to know the modal's dimensions, its colors, which icon to use for the dismiss button, whether the corners should be rounded, and what sort of transition to use (should it fade in/out, and for how long). By creating a functional prototype of the element, he or she no longer has to answer each of these questions individually.

I don't see this as a bad trend. When designers are able to communicate their ideas clearly to developers, everyone wins.

Who is we?

Depends what you mean by coding. Being able to structure a website in HTML and style it with CSS is a relatively simple skill and demands no long-term study => Sketch makes it even simpler. (Just for the basics)

Also i think you are talking about a designer i would call a unicorn as being able to transfer design into something usable is very useful but uncommon and rare.

I don't regret, nor force.