JargonFile/entries/syntactic salt.txt
2014-04-26 16:54:15 +01:00

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syntactic salt
n. 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.