1.5.1. Programming Style

One coding style places each option/value pair on a separate line:

$bttn = $parent->Button(-text => "my text",
                        -command => sub { exit }, 
                        -width => 10, 
                        -height => 10);

$bttn = $parent->Button(
   -text => "Exit", 
   -command => sub { exit }, 
   -width => 10, 
   -height => 10,
);

Sometimes if there are only one or two option/value pairs, it makes sense to leave them all on the same line and conserve a little bit of space:

$bttn = $parent->Button(-text => "my text", -command => sub { exit });

You'll eventually come up with a style that works for the way you read and edit code. Whichever way you choose, try to be consistent throughout your scripts in case someone else takes over the maintenance of your code (it might even be you, a year or more down the road).

1.5.2. Naming Conventions for Widget Types

Sometimes your programs run away from you, getting so large and unwieldy that it becomes hard to remember what a particular variable was pointing to. If there are over 10 Buttons in a program, we would be hard-pressed to figure out which Button was $button3 without digging through a bunch of code.

So we've established a naming convention for our code. You don't need to use our convention, but it'll hopefully inspire you to come up with your own. Otherwise, we hope you have a really good memory.

Table 1-1. Naming conventions by widget type