If shaders are hard, it's mostly because they require a full understanding of 3D math, the complete graphic pipeline, texture sampling, image manipulation techniques and how it all comes together before you can actually start doing anything useful; so the learning curve has a slope of 'wat' to almost all newcomers.
If anything, naming is just a nuisance.
they require a full understanding of 3D math, the complete graphic pipeline, texture sampling, image manipulation techniques and how it all comes together before you can actually start doing anything useful
Hm, not really. I learned more from messing with working demos and prototypes than studying theory. But YMMV.
It's absolutely true that the whole pipeline is very intimidating for newcomers, though.
I love that phrase... "the learning curve has a slope of 'wat'."
