No, it's pretty straightforward, terraform is just intended to parse and execute random functions in a graph generated by a template language. It is absolutely a form of 'make': overcomplicated and generic to serve the needs of supporting random companies' infrastructure as versioned code, without having to write the implementation bits.

It's a good idea and not a bad design, but the user experience is pretty bad and nearly all the operational aspect is an afterthought. It was not built to be sold as a product, hence it kind of sucks as a product, but it's fine as a free tool. The fact that it's the best free tool we have for this task speaks volumes about how most companies are deathly afraid to work as a community to build better solutions.