I’ve done it myself and found it not too bad. I was already familiar with the underlying paradigms of digital circuitry so it was mostly a process of struggling

I’ve done it myself and found it not too bad. I was already familiar with the underlying paradigms of digital circuitry so it was mostly a process of struggling with tools until I got a good flow. Using obscure boards (lattice vvml) with obscure languages (chisel, myhdl, spinalhdl) and obscure tools (nextpnr, yosys) has been an exercise in careful reading of documentation and disciplined experimental strategy.