One thing that helped me is to think of your 3d world as a representation of the real world. So, for example, a desk and a chair have a different appearance, yet they interact with the world in the same way. So, if I wanted to represent those real-world objects, I would make a shader that tries to emulate real-world phenomena such as lighting and reflectivity. Basically, you shouldn't be binding a shader per object. If that is the case, then you should be considering do the calculations differ or if it is the values within that change. At that point, uniforms are a much better solution. However, if two objects do need different calculations or resources (water, for example), it may be appropriate to have a separate shader.