This macro system is very powerful, if kludgy, but it's not the final version of the system. Macros 2.0 has been in the works for a while now and will eventually have a much nicer syntax for macro definitions. When Rust 1.0 was gearing up for release the team (rightly imo) decided that launching then with known-imperfect-but-usable macros was a worthwhile trade-off.