It's much easier than latex in my limited experience. For example I wanted to reproduce the 400-line .sty file I use for submitting assignments in the maths course I am studying in my part time. I have evolved that from something I found in someone's github over 3 years and it's still not quite right in some boring ways. This is 60 lines that I did in one afternoon and already it does everything the other one did and some things better than the old one.