I'm not a webapp dev, but C/C++ always felt unique via the preprocessor functionality that essentially does text substitutions on source code before handing off

I'm not a webapp dev, but C/C++ always felt unique via the preprocessor functionality that essentially does text substitutions on source code before handing off to the compiler. Actual flags are useful, e.g. -codegenfoo -linkflagbar, but I hate digging through a maze of -DFLIPOPTION1 and -DUSERSUPPLIEDTEXT="hahaha" to unscramble what code the compiler actually sees, and what went wrong because of the various user supplied strings (i.e. #define overwrites). If other languages also have this, well ugh sorry. I have grown to despise it.