Readit NewsTechnology is already so insane and advanced that most people just take it as magic inside boxes, so nothing is surprising anymore. It's all equally incomprehensible already.
This is the kind of stuff I always feel I should be able to do, yet it never happened. Seeing others just do it and share their learnings is such a joy.
My theory is that graphics programmers, at some point, stop having to care very much about what the textual representation of their program actually looks like. Because graphics programming is so hard, once you get to the point of understanding what you're doing, and typing in the shader, it becomes self-explanatory; you don't actually need variable names, what you need is understanding.
Inigo Quilez (author of shadertoy, and graphics programming legend) is one of the most talented graphics programmers alive, and produces some of the least readable code I've ever seen.
Just my 2c on why this is so common in graphics, specifically
Using more readable names definitely helps during development. I think the cause of this is twofold.
First, there's a lot of equations used in graphics programming where the canonical names of variables are single letters. If you know the formula a single letter is a good name and it is expected that others reading it also understand it - if you didn't you'd have to read up on the formula anyway.
But beyond that I also think it's a bit of misguided pride. Thinking it's cool to have as minimal inscrutable shader code as possible because that's trendy. It's very common for shaders to be developed with reasonable names and good layout then rewritten before publishing like it was an IOCCC entry.
> Bottom line: the more uncertainty, indeterminacy, ambiguity in your game, the more depth it will have.
Sure, starting from 0%, adding uncertainty adds depth. But the player needs to maintain some influence over that uncertainty. If you crank the uncertainty up too 100% then its pure random which isn't deep or fun.
I've noticed a similar more-is-better trend in a few sequels I've played, where the first game had say 5 mechanics which were fun. Then the sequel has 10 mechanics, and because 10 is more than 5 it therefore must be more fun. But it ends up being too much shit to juggle and less fun as a result.
More isn't always better
I don't mind complexity, some of my favorite games are ridiculously complex (Dwarf Fortress), but the complexity needs to pay for itself.
[0] https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/bio...
[1] https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/met...
Still, both of these were really interesting to my future colleagues (not the recruiter) who interviewed me in the last round of the interviews which landed me my current job. They had read them ahead of time and it really shaped the technical part of the interview.