syntactic salt

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}.  .