I was meditating about designing DSLs and especially how to robustly implement with like in JS to a have clearer and less verbose code.

So I thought to use Tk as a use case and found this 20 year old https://www.perl.com/media/_pub_1999_10_perltk_index/sld001.htm demo.

The code is extremely verbose and I'm asking myself if this is really state of the art.

For instance the code from https://www.perl.com/media/_pub_1999_10_perltk_index/sld010.htm

Is it really necessary to always repeat ...

• -background => 'cyan'
• ->pack()
• and finally my $t1 looks like sloppy code which will generate warnings

my $t1 = $left1->Label(-text => ' ',
                       -background => 'cyan')->pack();

my $t1 = $left1->Label(-text => ' Day  ',
                       -background => 'cyan')->pack();

my $t1 = $left1->Label(-text => ' Week ',
                       -background => 'cyan')->pack();

my $t1 = $left1->Label(-text => ' Month ',
                       -background => 'cyan')->pack();

my $t1 = $left1->Label(-text => ' Year ',
                       -background => 'cyan')->pack();
[download]

If needed I'd rather implement a helper like:

 
with ($left1) {
    default -background => 'cyan';
    chain { pack() };

    Label(-text => ' ');
    Label(-text => ' Day  ');
    Label(-text => ' Week ');
    Label(-text => ' Month ');
    Label(-text => ' Year ');
}
[download]

(pseudocode)

But before reinventing the wheel I'd like to discuss my doubts. =)