TeX is an intricate web of interrelated actions and processes which present challenges when attempting to discuss isolated aspects of its behaviour ...is the e

TeX is an intricate web of interrelated actions and processes which present challenges when attempting to discuss isolated aspects of its behaviour ...is the exact reason I quit using TeX/LaTeX. Even the easiest things are hard in this crazy computing context. Even boring imperative programming can quickly become a tangled mess if you don't take care; using TeX means you subscribe to a daily dose of fighting against a hydra of incidental complexity, very little has anything to do with TeX's job (typesetting) and everything with how it mixes 'ingenious' (i.e. not deterministically parsable) syntax with recursively expanding macros (thus constituting self-modifying code).