>Every computer science problem that involves one set of syntax to write another syntax (meta template programming) is complicated.

I'm not sure about 'meta' part you mentioning, but it seems that all the complexity of c++ templates comes from declarativity of these. If they were imperative — e.g. 'hey, compiler, put an additional if into specialization for that particular type', or produce specializations in a loop, or create template generators, etc — that would feel less bizarre. Deep inspection of seemingly simple terralang.org turned that upside down to me. These two languages (luajit/terra) are both not very popular, but the idea of simple imperative codegen is right there. I wish I were able to replace terra part with just C...