Enough use of macros means cognitive load for even simple code can be massive though. You can't really know what the result will be, especially if the entire program can be rewritten in some cases by a macro. If you constrain their use enough, sure, you will not run into these problems. But in any language it comes down to cognitive load vs expressiveness, in how you chose to wield it. Generally, more dense code requires more thinking to understand, and the resulting complexity has to do with the underlying structure, rather then the particulars used to represent it.