[straws]

It's true that macros exist in languages like Nim and Elixir, even C. They either use something more akin to string templates (expanding a macro fills in the holes) or a DSL for manipulating the AST (something new to learn to write code that writes code).

One reason Lispers find macros so beautiful is the simplicity of writing macros using the exact same list processing functions. The code-is-data thing is reinforced through the fact that the AST is one-to-one with the syntax.