Argument of\language?@active@arg> has an extra }. Runaway argument? Missing\endcsnameinserted. And then in the\end{tikzpicture}line I get: Extra }, or forgotten\endgroup. Missing } inserted. The complete code I'm using is this:
Slowly the fog has lifted and the innumerable nuances (and complexities) became clear(er). It has required building several TeX engines from source code; using a C debugger to watch TeX’s low-level table algorithms in action; adding extra C code to coerce Knuth’s TeX and e-TeX to outp...