Locoweed is absolutely correct.

What is missing from the shader forum is quite obvious.
Their is no tutorial, that defines exactly how to start working with shaders from the ground up. Their are a few attempts at entry level explanations, but nothing that I would consider a great "help."

And for Rhuarc, who's opposition to this thread seems to be the most vibrant, I can garuntee you (without even reading your examples) that none of those tutorials is what Loco is talking about. Take the tutorial on the wiki, one line says "All you need to do is multiply R1 * R2 and LOOK what happens." Well that begs a few questions, what is stored in r1 and r2 that requires multiplication, not addition? Those are the types of questions that should be answered in a quality tutorial, not just, that this is what you have to do, but why you are doing it that way in the first place. That is how you LEARN a topic.
Secondly, I'm taking it that no one asked you specifically to write the tutorial, so stop "being offended" by a post no one directed specifically at you, keep your mouth shut, and maybe some more knowledgable dedicated-to-helping-others forum members will make this tutorial, your flaming of locoweed is just a waste of time.

(I don't mean any of that personally Dan, but it needs to be said)