I'm a fan of Hash::Util when working with hash-based objects, myself. I tend to use init routines that look like this (to make it impossible to accidentally create a hashkey that's not supposed to be there):

use Hash::Util qw( lock_keys unlock_keys );

sub init {
  my $self = shift;
  my $args = shift;
  unlock_keys( %{ $self } );

  my @attributes = qw(
                       something_or_other
                       another_something
                      );

  foreach my $field (@attributes) {
    $ATTRIBUTES{ $field } = 1;
    $self->{ $field } = $args->{ $field };
  }

  lock_keys( %{ $self } );
  return $self;
}
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