I don't tend to use it, but I figure mentioning Class::Struct might be interesting to you guys:

use Class::Struct;

struct data => {
   id      => '$',
   secs    => '$',
   version => '$',
   misc    => '$',
   data    => '$',
   next    => 'data',    # just an example
};

$one = new data (id => 1, secs => 2);
$two = new data (id => 2, secs => 2, data => 'hi');
$one->next($two);

print $one->next->data;    # "hi"
[download]