> there are good and there are bad macro systems

Everyone and their grandmother uses the C Preprocessor. However comparatively few people have heard about its cousin m4 which was invented by the same people. m4 never caught on because it isn't very pleasant to use. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned it, since its existence is living proof of just how successful and amazing the C preprocessor is. https://wolfram.schneider.org/bsd/7thEdManVol2/m4/m4.pdf