>The first thing it seems to do is arbitrary textual inclusion, so that's already a big mess with unknowable consequences.

I'm not seeing this - can you clarify?

>Then we've got a "member function" where magically if we specify a function while midway through specifying a data structure the function is somehow treated as though it were part of that data structure - but of course it is actually just sugar. I know this confuses real learners.

Humor me, show me where this "member function" is?

I honestly feel like we're not reading the same code .. but maybe that's your point.