The dichotomy of 'design vs code' feels artificial to me.

The activities of designing and of coding overlap extensively. Both require a clarity of communication, a deep consideration of the purpose of the thing to be designed/built, and a sense of taste.

If in the habit of extracting general principles from concrete examples, coders can become better coders by learning aspects of design and vice versa.

Many of the concepts in a 'coder' book like 'How to design programs,' for example, are readily applicable to UX design, e.g: refactoring, wishful thinking, generalisation of purpose, and the control of complexity by use of 'black boxes.'

Likewise, a 'designer' book like 'The design of everyday things' is full of stuff that applies usefully to the activity of coding, e.g: the importance of meaningful feedback, and of ensuring a clear mapping between expected actions and their outcomes.

These correlations aren't everywhere to be found, though. But I've always found interdisciplinary people to have the freshest approaches.