[kaylarose]

I have the opposite background, but similar anecdotes. Spent all of high school and college in various art or design-focused curriculum and degrees. Inevitably ended up taking a few dev courses, but was only marginally interested. My first job after college was as a web designer in a software shop where I quickly realized that "real-world" programming mixed aesthetics and creativity with logic and really hard problems, was immediately hooked and started absorbing everything (even SICP!) in my quest to become a better developer.

Like yours, my left-brain intuitively sees patterns and (un)readabilty in code, beauty in simplicity, and has empathy for users/novices. My right-brain solves the problems, connects the top to the bottom, and is cold-and-calculating about the inner-workings.

It's also my experience, that if you are design-forward people discount your programming skills (all the more reason to prove them wrong) and if you are development-forward people discount your creative side ("oh, I _totally_ trust your opinion, but just to be on the safe side....").

IMHO Diversity of skills gives you insight into your work and the world around you. Even if you are not a natural you still gain new perspective. Hell, even knowing that you aren't any good is half the battle! I am good at _executing_ other people's ideas, and intuitively knowing what looks good - but struggle coming up with an original _truly unique_ artwork from scratch. On the other hand, Give me an empty vim buffer...