Does the sun rise in the morning?  Ok, that's not fair unless I am more specific. I've been reading articles/blogs/opinions/comments, etc on whether testers need programming skills. All of these articles make sound arguments and all are logical and on and on. I agree that testing skills and programming skills are two totally different things and that a good tester may not necessarily be a good programmer (or vice versa). The context of all of these is in regards to functional testing.  When it comes to performance testing, the answer must be that the tester has to have programming skills.  They do not need to be a rocket scientist in the language, and I tell everyone who asks and who I teach, that they need to be proficient in string manipulation coding.  Every tool I know and use has a programming language behind it (C, C++, C#, Java, JSP, VB, VB.NET, and a few proprietary) to extend the tool, which at some point in every engagement comes into play.  The only way around programming would be if someone  came up with a performance testing tool that used artificial intelligence so that you did not need custom coding to get an automated transaction to work - and they  would corner the market.!

Just one additional skill that is needed in conjunction with programming expertise is the ability to analyze and find patterns. Without these you would not be able to use your programming skills to manipulate a server response to get what you need.

As usual, if you have any comments or anything to add, please feel free to do so.