:syntactic sugar: [coined by Peter Landin] n. Features added to a
language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans,
features which do not affect the expressiveness of the formalism
(compare {chrome}). Used esp. when there is an obvious and
trivial translation of the `sugar' feature into other constructs
already present in the notation. C's `a[i]' notation is
syntactic sugar for `*(a + i)'. "Syntactic sugar causes
cancer of the semicolon." --- Alan Perlis.
The variants `syntactic saccharin' and `syntactic syrup' are
also recorded. These denote something even more gratuitous, in
that syntactic sugar serves a purpose (making something more
acceptable to humans), but syntactic saccharin or syrup serve no
purpose at all. Compare {candygrammar}, {syntactic salt}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
