The opposite of {syntactic sugar}, a feature designed to make it
harder to write bad code. Specifically, syntactic salt is a hoop the
programmer must jump through just to prove that he knows what's going
on, rather than to express a program action. Some programmers
consider required type declarations to be syntactic salt. A
requirement to write end if, end while, end do, etc.: to terminate
the last block controlled by a control construct (as opposed to just
end) would definitely be syntactic salt. Syntactic salt is like the
real thing in that it tends to raise hackers' blood pressures in an
unhealthy way. Compare {candygrammar}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {syntactic sugar}]