I hope that this term catches on sometime soon, but the fact remains that I am ''introducing'' this term.  Still, I think that it's a GoodThing: http://www.thesassyminx.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/dark-chocolate-bath.jpg

Syntactic dark chocolate is a variant of both SyntacticSalt and SyntacticSugar that makes things easier to write, but ensures that you know what you are doing, too.  Example: A version of a language with MultipleAssignment (like Python) but not AssignmentsAreExpressions, might implement AssignmentsAreExpressions like so:

	c += ( _ = a = b)

Which is ''SyntacticSugar'' for 

	a = b;
	c += a # which you would have to do in Python.

and ''SyntacticSalt'' for

	c += (a = b) //which is OK in C/C++/C#/pretty much every type of C.

There doesn't seem to be a language that actually has the above example, but differentiating EqualityOperators, KeywordArguments, and AssignmentsAreExpressions would be a good use of SyntacticDarkChocolate.

----

Thanks for the term. Per PythonVsRuby (unread by yours truly), the folks with the least differences always fight the hardest.

Yet everything that Pythonistas scoff that Ruby should not allow you to do (such as the holocaust of ''if x = foo() then use(x) end''), Ruby is letting you reduce your line count by doing it.

This SyntacticDarkChocolate is better for you than sugar. It's what gives you 1/10th the lines of code and 10 times the productivity as a BondageAndDiscipline language. Those "one line of code here and there" is what adds up. At refactor time, you suddenly discover you can keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and stuff just vanishes.

--PhlIp (with two years experience doing TestDrivenDevelopment in PythonLanguage and two more in RubyLanguage)

You provide no cogent reason to believe that SyntacticDarkChocolate is better than SyntacticSugar for saving "one line of code here and there", and it isn't as though BondageAndDiscipline languages lack their own funky syntax mechanisms that can save a line here and there. Certainly ''"1/10th the lines of code and 10 times the productivity"'' is a ridiculous exaggeration, especially if comparing to Python. If comparing to a language with manifest typing, separate compilation and linking, and other sorts of bureaucratic hoops it might be a reasonable assertion. But Python and Ruby (and Perl, and JavaScript) - primarily procedural scripting languages all - have nearly the same LoC profile when applied to similar tasks (according to http://gmarceau.qc.ca/blog/2009/05/speed-size-and-dependability-of.html). If you're experiencing such a difference between Ruby and Python, perhaps the difference is in ''you'' (who has more experience), or in your libraries and frameworks (which would be reinvented in the new language with more knowledge, avoiding old mistakes), and not in the language proper.

----
CategoryProgrammingLanguage