lib/PublicInbox/GitCatFile.pm |  5 +----
 lib/PublicInbox/Hval.pm       |  9 ++++-----
 lib/PublicInbox/Mbox.pm       | 11 +++++------
 lib/PublicInbox/Msgmap.pm     |  4 +---
 lib/PublicInbox/NewsGroup.pm  | 10 +++++-----
 lib/PublicInbox/SearchView.pm | 19 ++++++++-----------
 public-inbox-nntpd            | 13 ++++++-------

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/GitCatFile.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/GitCatFile.pm
index 540369616db2006473a69f94cad014a12cadd246..629d23ed214b5273f4aeacffa42945085c415199 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/GitCatFile.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/GitCatFile.pm
@@ -8,13 +8,10 @@ use strict;
 use warnings;
 use POSIX qw(dup2);
 require IO::Handle;
-use fields qw(git_dir pid in out);
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class, $git_dir) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
-	$self->{git_dir} = $git_dir;
-	$self;
+	bless { git_dir => $git_dir }, $class
 }
 
 sub _cat_file_begin {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Hval.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Hval.pm
index e0ec630583dd84364c6131575d8bf5a655d816a4..9fbe616f302e3d1580d5ccb83cfc7e8b59406847 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Hval.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Hval.pm
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ # represents a header value in various forms
 package PublicInbox::Hval;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(raw href);
 use Encode qw(find_encoding);
 use URI::Escape qw(uri_escape_utf8);
 use PublicInbox::MID qw/mid_clean/;
@@ -14,14 +13,14 @@ my $enc_ascii = find_encoding('us-ascii');
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class, $raw, $href) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
 
 	# we never care about leading/trailing whitespace
 	$raw =~ s/\A\s*//;
 	$raw =~ s/\s*\z//;
-	$self->{raw} = $raw;
-	$self->{href} = defined $href ? $href : $raw;
-	$self;
+	bless {
+		raw => $raw,
+		href => defined $href ? $href : $raw,
+	}, $class;
 }
 
 sub new_msgid {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Mbox.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Mbox.pm
index c92d444774cef389fb6f35d0b38b4b3639377aba..8bb8dc83ba3d99acc438cae0f62d69203405f529 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Mbox.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Mbox.pm
@@ -110,16 +110,15 @@ # to prevent IO::Compress::Gzip from complaining
 package PublicInbox::MboxGz;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(gz fh buf);
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class, $fh) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
 	my $buf;
-	$self->{buf} = \$buf;
-	$self->{gz} = IO::Compress::Gzip->new(\$buf);
-	$self->{fh} = $fh;
-	$self;
+	bless {
+		buf => \$buf,
+		gz => IO::Compress::Gzip->new(\$buf),
+		fh => $fh,
+	}, $class;
 }
 
 sub _flush_buf {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Msgmap.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Msgmap.pm
index f28579088e1ac78682915007873b0c8ef4766544..8a34e7e0c713a4036cd156de22795a525320e5d7 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Msgmap.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Msgmap.pm
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ # bidirectional Message-ID <-> Article Number mapping
 package PublicInbox::Msgmap;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(dbh mid_insert mid_for num_for num_minmax);
 use DBI;
 use DBD::SQLite;
 
@@ -23,8 +22,7 @@ 		PrintError => 0,
 		sqlite_use_immediate_transaction => 1,
 	});
 	$dbh->do('PRAGMA case_sensitive_like = ON');
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
-	$self->{dbh} = $dbh;
+	my $self = bless { dbh => $dbh }, $class;
 
 	if ($writable) {
 		create_tables($dbh);
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/NewsGroup.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/NewsGroup.pm
index 0c7051db92ce65410641b33da449243c8447441c..1250b0d84db3c9881da0b06a145446f0b3032b60 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/NewsGroup.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/NewsGroup.pm
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ # License: AGPLv3 or later (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt)
 package PublicInbox::NewsGroup;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(name git_dir address domain mm gcf search);
 use Scalar::Util qw(weaken);
 require Danga::Socket;
 require PublicInbox::Msgmap;
@@ -11,12 +10,13 @@ require PublicInbox::GitCatFile;
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class, $name, $git_dir, $address) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
-	$self->{name} = $name;
 	$address = $address->[0] if ref($address);
+	my $self = bless {
+		name => $name,
+		git_dir => $git_dir,
+		address => $address,
+	}, $class;
 	$self->{domain} = ($address =~ /\@(\S+)\z/) ? $1 : 'localhost';
-	$self->{git_dir} = $git_dir;
-	$self->{address} = $address;
 	$self;
 }
 
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchView.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchView.pm
index 6bc66ceb0ca68d35d9f0a82f29e3771f609d78b6..cfc650f437a0dada30d4c41a39285a70e99ffcb1 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchView.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchView.pm
@@ -257,27 +257,24 @@
 package PublicInbox::SearchQuery;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(q o t x r);
 use PublicInbox::Hval;
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class, $cgi) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
-	$self->{q} = $cgi->param('q');
-	$self->{x} = $cgi->param('x') || '';
-	$self->{o} = int($cgi->param('o') || 0) || 0;
-	my $r = $cgi->param('r');
-	$self->{r} = (defined $r && $r ne '0');
-
-	$self;
+	my $r => $cgi->param('r'),
+	bless {
+		q => $cgi->param('q'),
+		x => $cgi->param('x') || '',
+		o => int($cgi->param('o') || 0) || 0,
+		r => (defined $r && $r ne '0'),
+	}, $class;
 }
 
 sub qs_html {
 	my ($self, %over) = @_;
 
 	if (keys %over) {
-		my $tmp = fields::new(ref($self));
-		%$tmp = %$self;
+		my $tmp = bless { %$self }, ref($self);
 		foreach my $k (keys %over) {
 			$tmp->{$k} = $over{$k};
 		}
diff --git a/public-inbox-nntpd b/public-inbox-nntpd
index f6042c2f9d1fb14d86986f13c3cef38829fa3069..79161fb71b2fb188ba69b04c98f4fdccfbabf6e6 100644
--- a/public-inbox-nntpd
+++ b/public-inbox-nntpd
@@ -15,16 +15,15 @@ 1;
 package PublicInbox::NNTPD;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use fields qw(groups grouplist err out);
 
 sub new {
 	my ($class) = @_;
-	my $self = fields::new($class);
-	$self->{groups} = {};
-	$self->{err} = \*STDERR;
-	$self->{out} = \*STDOUT;
-	$self->{grouplist} = [];
-	$self;
+	bless {
+		groups => {},
+		err => \*STDERR,
+		out => \*STDOUT,
+		grouplist => [],
+	}, $class;
 }
 
 sub refresh_groups () {