It's only ugly because you're using perl. If you were in another language where you were used to seeing "lambda" all the time in user code it'd be ordinary. If you were using Haskell you wouldn't even have to be explicit about it. Since you're using Perl, you've got to live with what you've got. Or enact dizzying schemes of fantastic magicalism. I hope all that machinery is worth it just to get rid of the sub { ... }.