Sugar in a system is magic.

It makes the thing taste better, but in a way that can give you cavities.

The best kind of sugar is inductively knowable; the things it does can be described in just a few, easy-to-understand lines of userland code.

That means that the sugar can make your day to day experience sweeter, but also if the sugar is getting in your way it's possible to peel it off and just step one un-intimidating layer down.

Sugar gets confusing when it does magical things nothing else can do, or it applies differently in different contexts, so it's hard to reason about where it applies.

In that case, if you do need to peel off the sugar, it's a big, scary drop down.